


Juicy Fruit

by StopitGerald



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, Annoying Siblings, Asking on A Date, Awkward Tension, Bar rooms, Blood and Injury, Business, Couch Cuddles, Crush at First Sight, Cussing, Dating, Denial of Feelings, Drink Spiking, Drinking, Drugging, Embarrassment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Financial Issues, First Crush, First Dates, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff, Happy Ending, Homophobia, Hope's Peak Academy, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Injury, Just coming to terms with everything and being happy, Komaru Naegi - Freeform, Love, Naegi is a gas station clerk, Naegi's a sweetie and Togami luvs him, Office Jobs, Past Child Abuse, Protectiveness, Revenge, Romantic Gestures, Sickeningly Sweet, Smoking, So much humiliation for poor Togami, Swearing, Togami is a sly guy, Unrequited, Washing Dishes, awkward firsts, basically nurse togami amirite, but i love her, coping with past abuse, emotional fights, flustered naegi, giddy boys, kirigiri is a snake, lazy boi, more embarrassment amirite, physical comfort, tending to injury, the cutest goodest boys, unrequited support
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:46:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StopitGerald/pseuds/StopitGerald
Summary: Togami Byakuya is immune to love- and no, he doesn't chew gum.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> the chapters will range from 1000-4000 words per. I hate trying to have every chapter be the same length- it kills my flow. so I'm sorry if you don't like long- or short- chapters :(

Byakuya Togami drives with the windows up. The inky Plexiglas is sealed tight in its place as the v8 engine on his gorgeous muscle car purrs to his foot on the gas pedal. The cab fills with smoke, strands of transparent smog dance in front of his crystal frames. He hates it, really, absolutely loathes how it feels like the inside of a seedy bar in his luxury car, but he finds the tobacco a better scent than what lingers just on the other side of his jet-black tinted windows-

Farmland.

From what his blues can spot beyond the cigarette fog and near black tint, the landscape he’s driving through resembles literally any hole-in-the-ground town from literally any American film he’d bothered to watch. What did they call it- rural? Its pasture after pasture after pasture littered with stray foliage and little black shapes ambling about- cows, probably, but they’re far too blurred for him to make out. His engine is kitten purr grown up into a lion- his unconscious mind far too desperate to drive away from all this… _country._

He was out here on business- just a month- that was all. He’s had to reassure himself at every mile marker. His mind screams and shakes his body’s shoulders, “go back where you belong!” but he knows the pay for this job is far too high for such easy work to just give it up over some- _some cows and corn!_

Jin Kirigiri is a respectable man, a high link in the chain of industry and business. He’d offered this position with careful calculation.

His daughter- Kirigiri Kyouko, he believes- runs a school out here. Some bigshot academy just putting its feet on the ground. Why in god’s name she’d picked this place- out of all the prestigious places in need of more educational institutes- he supposes he’ll never know. His logical mind picks, “low building cost, low expectations from poor students and their families,” but he knows the Kirigiri’s are far too sentimental for that to be the only reason.

The position at this new school is an esteemed one. Kyouko Kirigiri is in need of a new executive- a paperwork man- and that’s just the job for him. He’s even been supplied a temporary residence for his stay- until the school gets its roots put down- and he’s not one to refuse the temptation of big salary for little work.

The further he drives, the more he wishes he wasn’t so easily swayed by dollar signs.

The town is, indeed, a jerkwater sort of place.

The street (main street, of course) is lined with old buildings made out of wood that probably dates back to war times- topped with little signs that scream “general store”, “feed store,” “corn only 3$ a pound!” and it makes his godlike complexion mar with hairs on end- shuddering at the disgusting domesticity of it all.

His GPS chimes, indicating a turn, and he’s sure to rev the engine at a group of what seems to be high school age children staring awestruck from the corner he’s just rounded. They’ve seen nothing like him yet, and never again will they experience such a feeling as being within the presence of Byakuya Togami and his $175000 car.

He’s entered the parking lot of the school- a viable explanation for the young children he’d just growled at. His parking is a smooth endeavor- save for the six or seven massive potholes he’d had to avoid to pull into a safe spot. The school building is huge, stands at about five or six stories tall with brick and marble siding and huge glass window walls. It’s impeccably modern against its backdrop of pastures and country. He’s quite glad to see it turn out like this- a modern workplace for the modern man.

He lifts himself out of his car- makes a face at the sudden waft of smoke exiting his cab as it mixes with the acrid smell of rurality. His long, confident strides into the front gates of the building are applauded by each thud of his expensive black dress shoes as they click against a decorative stone walkway. His case is tucked under an important arm lined with Egyptian cotton and satin formal wear.

He pushes open the double doors like a pop star making an entrance, the room fills with dramatic flair- at least it does in his imagination. In reality, the lobby is bare.

The receptionist’s desk is abandoned with the clock striking six o’clock- school has long since been out. But the real event’s only just begun- he’s only just arrived- and nothing is more eventful than the arrival of esteemed businessman Byakuya Togami.

Again through another set of doors, these more for decoration than anything else, and he’s called to. A strong voice interrupts his critical inspection of the décor choices.

“There you are. Finally.”

He turns on a dime, eyes sharp with the accusation of his being late. He’s not- of course, he’s never late for anything- as he’d said earlier- the main event starts with his arrival.

Standing at the end of a long hallway to his right is her- Kyouko Kirigiri, and she’s stalking toward him like a tigress- her gloved hands are clasped, lingering below her sharp chin and angular features. She stops a mere foot away from him- stands straight and tall to try and match his height (in vain, he thinks smugly) A swish of long, long, lavender threads behind her shoulder blade and she’s off to running her mouth again.

“The trip is a long way. Glad you could make it. As you likely know- I’m Kirigiri Kyouko.”

Her voice is curt in a way that’d suggest anger, but something tells Togami that she’s always like this.

“Of course,” His lips curl into a faux honey grin, “I’m Togami Byakuya.”

She hums in acknowledgment- accepts his extended hand for a shake. He’s always prided himself on being able to make those around him quake with intimidation- but he finds himself well matched this round. She’s not one to be intimidated.

She turns on one stiletto heel, stalks off towards the staff hall, and beckons him to follow with the curl of two clothed digits.

“Follow me.”

He does as told- commanded- and is led by the clicks of her violent violet heels to a plain door, a little oblong window placed vertically down its hinge side.

“Your office. Everything you need is inside. Feel free to start tonight.”

He nods- just barely hanging onto that oh-so-fake grin of gratefulness as she slips away into a neighboring room.  It immediately falls away as he faces the door, glad to be alone again. He turns the cold, silver handle and pries the door from its frame. It protests with a loud squeak- not used to being handled in its brand new condition. This building was a newborn- after all.

As he feels for the light switch- he can say he’s both surprised and disappointed all at once.

The floor is the same white tile as the halls had been, speckled with flecks of ambient gray. And the furniture: a desk, fitted with rolling chair and blue school-chair on its opposite side, and a bookshelf are humble. It’s a bare-bones room- something he’d either have to fill in himself or bear with until it’s time for him to return to his lap of luxury in the big city. He consoles himself with the room’s hideous simplicity by nursing the idea of his speedy return home.

He sits at the desk, the feeble rolling chair doesn’t speak to his weight- but he can feel it tremble. The old monitor is turned off- no need for it now- he thinks- and a stack of papers is already piled a mile high in front of him- a testament to the desperation for an executive’s fine-tuned hand.

He groans to himself, pulls a pen from his drawer and gets to work.

This is going to be hell.


	2. Chapter 2

It is precisely, one-hundred-and-one-percent, midnight o’clock when the last sign here, sign there is John Hancock’d with a tight, porcelain fist's grip on ballpoint pen.

He hadn’t been forced to finish the towering stack of paperwork, Kirigiri had been sure to let him know that as she’d made her way out, little stilettos clicking the whole way.

“You can go home. It’s your first day.”

And, yet, he still bitches as though she’d chained him to the desk and threatened his livelihood. He’d stayed and signed until his palm shook bright crimson, but truly only for the glory of showing off just how good of an executive he was going to make.

The paperwork, neatly stacked once again, this time with the empty initials line’s proudly marked with a pen’s slash of T.B. is nothing but a blur of white and black 8-pt font. His head throbs with the consistent tone of work work work for about five hours straight after a three-hour drive from the city, but he shrugs off his stumble to his feet with a smug smirk all to himself. He’s the only one crazy enough to still be at work at this hour, so he thinks. 

He really ought to fix this headache, but he hasn’t the slightest clue which of these ‘stores’ he’d passed had flashed a twenty-four-hour sign in its dusty, old, rice-paper windows.

He deems it no matter, he’s sure to swerve by a drugstore on his way to his temporary residence.

The November air bites his sweaty palms and shocks him into a perfectly straight posture as he strides back out of the gates of Hope’s Peak Academy literally 6 hours after he’d gone into them. His car welcomes him with a smooth startup, the dash blinks at him bright blue- activated to illuminate by the switch to twilight. His GPS blips and whirs up, a faithful navigator in this rural area of deceit and deficit. He’s set it to the address of his residence (temporary, remember) and he’s swerved back around those six or seven potholes- back onto main st.

It’s a good twenty-whole-minutes of headache and blurry, darting hues behind white spectacles, worrying his knuckles with a tight grip on the wheel for fear something will happen with his impaired state of mind and eyes. It’s a good twenty-four before he sees the glare- far too bright for aching blues- of a gas station sign.

Togami doesn’t like gas stations- but he supposes the headache behind his temples is far too incessant to get along with.

The sign in the window blinks- Open! Open!- and the glass windows are alight- yet disturbance ripples down his vertebrae at the iron bars on the windows and door- a common precaution for convenience stores, but unsettling for a rich man like himself, nonetheless.

He’s parked and ungracefully scurried inside before he can be bothered to count the seconds.

He recoils immediately at the stench of gasoline and that conveniently convenient convenience store odor that his fragile palate simply cannot bear. Rock music plays from a radio to his left, and it seems all his senses are being assaulted by this particular store, and he’s left to wonder if his headache had caused him to crash a while back and now he’s in hell.

He snatches a travel sized bottle of painkillers from an endcap- wipes a palm on his slacks to do away with the germs and disgust- and oh god! It’s just so horrible! He turns to the counter- to the register- and slams the bottle down just roughly enough to shock the cashier up from the magazine he’s buried his incompetent little nose into, reveals a face-splitting grin and an astoundingly endearing face.

“Oh! Sorry, didn’t see ya there!”

The man- _boy-_ chuckles to himself as if his irresponsibility at his workplace is some sort of sick joke. Togami clears his throat at it all- the mess of chocolate brown cowlicks falling into saucer hazel eyes, freckles dust his nose like cocoa powder. This cashier is double devils food delight- and Togami does not want to know why it makes his cheeks feel warm to meet his friendly gaze. The boy's cheekbones rise with a smile, white and flashing all his teeth proudly. He shakes his muss of brunet and rings up the bottle- has the audacity to slow his finger at the register and slowly glance back up to glance at Togami’s tired features.

“Sayyy- I haven’t seen you around! You must have just moved recently?”

He keeps smiling, smiling, dazzling bright whites gleam in Togami’s vision.

“I’m here on business. I’ll be leaving in a month, fortunately.”

The cashier “hmms”, purses pink lips to ponder and then laughs again.

“Your total is-“

“Add cigarettes.”

Despite the annoying thump thump thump of his headache and the appalling thump thump thump of his heart at the extremely ordinary- yet somehow extraordinary cashier- he’s not managed to forget his favorite addiction.

“Um, Yessir!”

He hops down off the stool he was perched on- shimmies his way to the great wall of cancer sticks- and has to stretch like a child towards a cookie jar to reach them. He stands at nothing more than five foot- there’s just no way. He’s impossibly small- thin arms, legs short and toothpick. He spins back around- hair bounces up from hazels with the movement.

It’s horrific. All he’s done is ignore his customer and speak with a buttery little drawl as he rang up his items ever so slowly- but it manages to affect Togami regardless. He doesn’t even know the boy’s first name- yet he’s intrigued. So, so, so somehow, someway extraordinary.

He’s shocked out of his thoughts of timid country boys by a little chirp, a flounce of brown locks

“Your total is $10.74!”

He reaches under the counter-

“And here- as a welcome gift, from me to you!”

His tanned fingers side a little yellow square across the gray countertop. Togami has to cock his head to make sense of what he’s looking at.

A box of Juicy Fruit gum glares back up at him- and for some reason- he takes it with his bag.

Before he can turn to leave- tiny cashier has called out to him again,

“I’m Naegi Makoto.”

His toothy grin expects an answer- and any normal Togami- any no-headache, totally-not-entranced-by-a-commoners-aura Togami wouldn’t even respect him enough to offer such reciprocation, but tonight he is not himself.

“Togami Byakuya.”

And then- finally- he meets his stride out the door- packet of Juicy Fruit feeling heavy in his slacks’ pocket.


	3. Chapter 3

Togami is rudely wrenched from his near-comatose sleep with the grating bleeping of a phone alarm to his right. His hand is quick to strangle the lifeless smartphone, gripping the bland, colorless case in a tight fist as he slaps his index finger onto the ‘stop’ button in a grumble of ‘im awake, im awake.’

He absolutely, positively cannot stand the fact that, last night, in his deep haze of exhaustion-induced immediate fall into sleep- the first thing his brain had decided to conjure up in his princely realm of dreams was the face of that cashier- that Naegi Makoto who’d offered him the Juicy Fruit gum. That complete peasant- the gas station clerk- had trespassed into the once place in his life that would always hold the regality of his true home in the city.

He can’t recall anything other than that the clerk had been present, with his biology-defying smile and toothpick structure. Electric blue eyes settle on the pack of gum on his nightstand, perfect lips curl into a sneer at the remembrance of last nights events.

He stands, shakes the fatigue from his weighed down, fresh-from-sleep form and blinks into his lenses to take in the room around him.

It’d been far too dark and he’d been far too exhausted to pay any mind to the looks of the residence- all that mattered was that there were a bed and a heater- and to his thank-god-gratefulness, there is.

The entire place is… rustic. The walls are lined with cheap, flower patterned wallpaper, worn thin and gray with time and age, and the floor is yellowish beige wood, he can’t be bothered to name the type. The ceiling- nearly too low for his six foot five imposture, threatens his delicate halo of perfect tresses of blond with a strange, spiky, stucco pattern. The bed and it’s matching nightstand are ancient in and of themselves- and probably outdate himself by hundreds of years. A small mattress creaks on its aching metal frame.

The bathroom is to match, he finds, as he wanders in with his bag on his arm. It’s a hassle if there ever was one to search and pick through his toiletries. Despite his traveling bag’s immaculate state, he carries so many self-care, hygiene, pretty, pretty primping products that it still falls into disarray.

He’s a whiz of shiny, black straightening iron and thin lines of jet-black to annunciate the syllables of his eye’s sharp curves. He’s a model, a god, angular cheeks fitted with soft, handsome features, and he stuffs every single one of his pretty, pretty, primping products: hot iron, eyeliner, gloss, $50 hairbrush, back into his bag to prove to the house’s thin walls around him that he is not it’s inhabitant- this is merely temporary.

not much longer, temporary, temporary, is his chant as he follows through his tall strut into the living room; earns his pride a dig in the shins when he’s smacked his forehead into a low hanging lip on a doorframe, but he’s speedy to shake it off as he begrudgingly prepares his own coffee- instant coffee- instant black liquid that maybe smells like coffee but doesn’t taste like it- and shoulders his case into a trot out the front door- he’s sure to duck this time.

His cab fills with smoke again- hazes his vision and leaves him a bit breathless despite being a smoker since he was nineteen tender years old. Again, again, he drives past more pasture- in the light of precious, pink dawn this time- and spots more lazy brown lumps called cattle as he speeds towards his destination. His GPS is silent- it only takes one time for Togami Byakuya to remember a route, steel trap he is.

His gait into the school is quick, hasty. He’s ready, ready, prepared for more hand cramps, more bitching, more paperwork. He’s at ease now- completely himself in this environment now that it is his. He provides proof of his ever-ushering dominance by asserting his lovely, resting-bitch-face to smugly replace the revoltingly fake smile from what feels already like yesteryear.

He expects Kirigiri, maybe, to greet him good morning, a coffee clenched in gloved hand and the ever so ghostly sign of a smirk sitting on her thin lips. Maybe, even, another coworker who he’s yet to make good with as of now, but he definitely does not, at all, expect the situation- the chatterbox- that has decided to plant himself in front of the office door marked Togami Byakuya.

There is no reason whatsoever in all the reasons for everything everywhere for the gas station clerk from 16.8 miles down the road to be in front of his office unless he’s being stalked, but it’s happening anyway- regardless of reason or rhyme or rhythm or any other terms commonly used to describe poetry. And though he’s arrogant in his expectation of literally anyone to be so enthralled by him they would follow him to work, Naegi's not looking at Togami, not yet.

Naegi Makoto stands with his back facing the taller man, a hand poised on his hip, the other digits gesturing wildly in the air as he speaks with Kirigiri, who stands directly in front of him. She seems to be actually interesting in whatever babble is flowing from his lips, but she sees Togami- and all hell breaks loose.

 “Hey, Togami. Nice work last night, didn’t expect you to finish all that.”

As predicted by his supposedly prophetic mind, she sips a recyclable coffee cup, those gloved digits hang on tight.

“Hey- I know that- Hey!”

Naegi is a demon turning 360 degrees at the cervical as he spins around. His eyes widen from saucers to dinner plates and his smile turns from broad to broader.

There’s _no way_ this is happening.

“It’s you!”

Naegi entertains himself with a few moments of bubbly laughter, a hand over his mouth, shielding his angel-kissed freckled nose from view as his shoulders rack with each little squeak. He removes the hand with a theatric flip of brown locks up from his forehead to better see his one-turned-two conversation partners.

Togami would like nothing more than to dart into his office and slam the door as hard as possible, make a show to scare the clerk off as quickly- but its already asserted that Naegi had no idea Togami would be here, much to the chagrin of the businessman's ego- alas, it's already been proven so by his surprise and his preoccupation with his ever so interesting talk with Kirigiri- who decides it’s finally her turn to put in her two cents.

“You two know each other?

It’s a musical, brilliant harmony of, “No.” and “Sort of!” and Kirigiri raises an eyebrow in silent questioning as she awaits the truth to the two-faced dilemma presented by their ever-so-contradicting words. Contradicting, different, not the same, that’s what they are but for some reason, Togami cannot cannot shake the familiarity that lingers in being soaked in said boy’s presence.

“He came to get medicine at the gas station when I was on shift, we talked some.”

Naegi flashes again that _grin_ , it’s starting to make him sick because how can someone smile for so long, and so often? Don’t his cheeks hurt?

He rocks back and forth on red canvas shoes, clasps tiny hands at his midsection and laughs, again, to himself. He cocks his head at Togami, big hazels bore black holes into the very pores of the hardened business man’s soul, and he can’t force himself to wiggle out of the interesting little stare.

“You liked the gum?”

He scritch-scratches the back of his neck and leans in a little, not too close for anyone of the human race but much too close for Togami, and he recoils a bit at that lingering grin being within touching distance of his arm’s length. He knows Naegi can smell it on his breath- the somewhat pleasant flavor of god-knows-what, something one really just cant name, ‘its on the tip of my tongue, quite literally,’ kind of taste. The packet feels like a lead weight in the pen pocket of his suit jacket.

And of course, hardened, steel, businessman Togami Byakuya replies,

“Sure.”

And he lights up again- that waiting little stare; slightly puffed cheeks and sparkly eyes revert to their natural state of smile, smile, smile and he rocks back to stand at a comfortable distance again.

Kirigiri, ever the ignored, lightens her narrowed eyes and rolls her eyes behind Makoto’s turned-to-her back and gestures to Togami.

“We’ve work to do. Makoto, you can flirt later.”

The face on that boy falls, for the first time since their first encounter, into something that’s not a smile, and even then, it’s not a frown, a sneer, or a look of shock, not any emotion that can be distinguished from ever-lasting happiness. His eyebrows shoot up and his lips straighten into a line to be interrupted by the crimson-cheeked exclamation of,

“I am _NOT_ flirting!”

And Togami, a perfect partner in crime match, rosy hue dusted on upturned nose and high cheekbones, storms into his office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its snowing so no college- happy two chaps


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm working on my writing style. I don't necessarily focus on grammar and punctuation with this style, it's supposed to be more poetic sounding at the cost of English rules. I quite enjoy just letting the words flow but we'll see.

Time passes with each whoosh of a scribbled signatured paper to his right, forming a tidy tower of paperwork. He’s not sure how much time has passed him by since he’d scrambled away from that traumatically mortifying incident, but he’s sure the tick tock tick of the analog clock above his doorframe has spoken to at least three or four hours.

He’s content to keep working, not even far enough delved into the white sheets of nonsense to hurt his delicate, nimble fingerbones. Time flies when you’re having fun, he supposes, but again, scribing the notable little marks of B.T. all over paperwork for a business he couldn’t care less for isn’t really fun. The dollar signs in his eyes mend the wound of boring, plain, time consuming that insists he should find something more entertaining to do.

Again, content, is he, to finish yet another leaning tower of papers, but he’s interrupted by three sharp raps at his door, they come in quick successions, like gunfire. The door creaks open before he can even call to his visitor, but he’s unsurprised when Kirigiri rounds the edge of the frame.

Black cloth fingers grip the faux wood as she fixates herself in the middle of the room, a hand poised on her hip in a casual stance.

“Just came to check up. You don’t have to finish all that, you know.”

Her face is blank, but her tone is that of a reprimanding mother, something Togami has never once had to deal with in his whole life. His rebellious spirit, that little spark of an underdog he is from his family line encourages him to disobedience yet again, to rub his fingers raw with ballpoint pen markings on lines of sign here: underscores. In contrast, his second persona revels in the idea of an early return home to rest on that shitty, yellowing mattress and sleep to his heart’s content.

She stands another solid minute, and when her form shifts to leave, he calls out to her like the fool he’s become in his meager 49 hours in this town.

“Is he… always like that?”

There’s no question as to who is he, or as to what it is that _he_ is like. Kirigiri is sharp, their minds are akin in that aspect and that aspect alone. She sidesteps to stand again in the Centre, crosses thin pale arms over her lavender tie and satin dress shirt.

“Yea, even when we were kids.”

Ah, that mention of sentimentality the Kirigiri’s are well known for has shown its head up from the metaphorical sands of a cold demeanor and a lock-box heart. She’d grown up around here because it’s quite obvious that Naegi has lived here since the uneventful day of his birth, and they hadn’t moved here together. Or at least he’s fairly sure that’s not the case.

“You two are…?”

He drawls off in a manner only referred to as suggestible, raises primly groomed eyebrows as he awaits the response of his well-deserved answer. Not that it matters, what his temporary boss did in her meantime with a gas station clerk is of no meaning to him, of course.

“God, no.”

She nearly, nearly smiles, little perks of the corners of white lips barely lift her face a nanometer, but it's in her violet eyes that tell all, the sparkle in them indicates humor. He feels bored already, isn’t even sure why he’d brought it up in the first place because- _no-_ he does not at all care about Naegi Makoto’s supposed private life.

“We’re childhood friends.” She shifts her weight and juts a hip to place her hand back upon its position, “I love him, but not… like that.”

A bit of informality drips and drools into her speech as she wonders, she stares him down with poised brows to match his own prior to her answer. She has a question for him as well, and if they’re being informal already…

“You like men?”

The perking lip corners return but this time in a smirk, and she’s not shy about showing it. Kirigiri does not chuckle, giggle, or laugh like her ‘childhood-friend’- (what’s that mean anyway? he’s left to wonder, never having any friends himself, though he’ll be a dead man before he admits that.) but she shows her glee in embarrassing him, as she had with the flirting comment, with a gleam in her cat eyes and that devil smile relaxing on her chin.

His immediate reaction is to nearly cough up a lung and half-upset his coffee from it’s throne on the edge of the desk, but his shaken response is not in a hurry to deny that claim or defend himself from the labels of homosexuality- she’s not wrong, he takes it in, duly noted. Kirigiri isn’t just as smart as he is- she’s just as clever.

“You don’t need to-“ He clears his throat for clarity, shoots her a glare through frames, “tell the entire staff about it.”

It matters not to him what people think of his orientation- of course- but Kirigiri really needs to work on her tone if she’s going to be mentioning private things in public places. She’s everything but perfectly well-mannered- to him, at least.

His preference comes not from a love for men or their sex or their bodies- but from his distaste for women. Togami Byakuya: tall, young, rich, bachelor: flashing on signs all hung above his gorgeous face- and a day had never passed where tall, young, rich, bachelor could find more than a minute to be without marriage proposals and kissy faces falling from the sky. Yes, he’s certainly done with women.

She interrupts his train of thought again,

“Pardon me, then.” She sighs to herself, ever so quiet, a moment of awkward tension passes, he wishes she would leave, she persists, “He’s taken a liking to you. He’s excitable, but he lit up when he saw you. What’d you say to him last night at that gas station?”

Her question lingers with the tension, floats freely like a big, fat snowflake teasing it’s way to the ground. Down, down down, until- poof- it’s melted. His ‘poof’ is vulgar and angry, he slams a hand on the edge of his armchair, nearly shouts, so fed up with not being able to get Naegi Makoto, Naegi Makoto: gas station clerk out of his goddamn mind!

“Nothing! I purchased some fucking cigarettes and left! No big fucking deal.”

She is all knowing- a divine goddess seated in front of him, her crystal ball mind tortures his poor heart further, the gentle smile- smirk, of knowledge, spreads from one pallid cheek to the other.

“Your vulgarity would suggest otherwise.”

He nervously sips his still shaking coffee, almost chokes on its certainly-not-coffee-instant-black-tar taste and scrabbles for his pen, anxiously jots down another cursive T.B. and tosses it into the completion stack.

“Be kind to him, alright?”

Another long beat of silence, he can hear the blood rush through his ears, cut the tension with a dull knife.

“Alright.”

Is his answer, though he’s not sure what exactly he’s agreed to. He and Kirigiri find themselves so obnoxiously different sometimes it’s as though they speak two contrasting dialects. French flows from his mind, his mouth, his soul, and she’s like German: commanding, cool, and authoritative. Yet he finds he takes no orders from her directly, and has been nothing but hotly embarrassed since this morning- not cool, not commanding-

She slips out nearly unnoticed, he’s too lost in the trance of being kind to Naegi Makoto and just what the hell she meant by that really, and he’s alone in his office again.

-he reaches into his desk drawer and sneaks a piece of gum, places the yellow between his teeth, and leans back in his chair.


	5. Chapter 5

Togami had resolved, a whole three hours after the melting pot of tension that had been his confrontation with Kirigiri, that he would leave at a decent hour, just before dusk, and make it to his residence with time to kill. He’d done just that, followed through with that resolution from his stand from his chair, legs aching with inactivity, to his resume of that same posture- once again sitting, this time in the driver’s seat of his car.

He’s set for the day, satisfied with the work he’d done, long since shaken off and wiped himself clean of all the odd-defying humiliations that had tumbled themselves at him down a mudslide of happenstance. There’s only one problem, he realizes with a palm slapped to his forehead-

He needed coffee filters.

He realized that as he had grabbed the last one earlier that morning- despite hating the disgusting taste of the near-ink that dripped suspiciously from the ancient coffee maker, he’s a man of schedule and regulation, and he can’t go on without his cigarettes and black coffee.

He would have decided it time to brace himself for the stench of corn feed and tobacco chew in one of those quaint general stores lining main st., if only he’d remembered his ingrained shopping list as he’d turned out of the school parking lot. He’s already too far to turn back, but he’s not too far to make one last stop. He hadn’t seen anything other than _that_ gas station the night he’d needed painkillers- that awful place was his last choice.

He’s pulled up to the barred windows and flashing blinking, bright neon Open! Open! Signs before he can convince himself to go without.

He pulls his coat tighter around him, stoops to pull from his hunched position in his car, and stops to drink in the scenery. To his left is the narrow entrance road, nothing but a bunch of broken asphalt. The main road is as barren as the fields on its opposite side. It seems midnight hadn’t been the only thing making this street such a lonely little stretch. He was really _out_ here, wasn’t he? The fabled ‘sticks’, if it exists, is certainly where he composes himself at the moment.

He doesn’t dare look up, keeps his gaze completely fixated on the ground just two feet in front of the pointy toes of his dress shoes.

All he needs is coffee filters, that’s it. He is not interested in coming here at all- never will be again, in fact, not after the heated embarrassment of actually finding someone as common as Naegi Makoto to be interesting in the tiniest, miniscule least.  Regardless of his steep trap mind or his iron will composure, both of those entities are powerless against his blues as they dart towards the counter for the splittest second- just long enough to catch a shock of… red hair?

Naegi had been here last night, not this early, granted, but it still confuses Togami to the point of staccato heartbeats and bated breath as he observes the man standing behind the counter. He is a man of soaringly high triple digit IQ, and he knows for certain what a work shift is. He knows in his mind that Naegi Makoto works nights, not evenings, but his heart still poises a little question mark regardless. He narrowly avoids punching himself in the chest to still the annoying pound pound in his ears.

He does not care that Naegi isn’t here, certainly is glad to have avoided the awkward confrontation, for sure. He’s rapid in his snatch of coffee filters and storming stomp to the register. He crosses lank arms over jet-black suit and tie and sneers, observes the cashier as he rings the filters up, blows a bubble of pink gum that pops prematurely onto his stubble and hideous lip ring.

He is the definition of ‘punk rock’ if there is one truly- he is the picture beside ‘edgy’ in the Webster. His red fiery spikes are held nearly vertical by a strongly scented gel, his eyes move slowly as he flicks the receipt across the counter in a bored fashion. His tongue ring peaks out to tap against his lip ring a quiet click of metal on metal. Tattoos, even, peaking out around sloppy white button up.

He scoffs at the man, crumples the receipt and straightens to all threatening six foot five inches and bares down on his incompetence with a glare of frost.

“Oh shit- I know you-you're the juicy fruit guy!”

Two lined eyes shoot wide as his initially uninterested expression shifts and morphs into an amalgamate of shock and comedic timing. He nearly doubles over, snorts like an animal in his raucous laughter; recognition turned into what Togami would absolutely call an insult.

“What,” He seethes through linear pearly whites, “did you just call me?”

Naegi Makoto has been shit talking him to his co-workers, and it is wholly unappealing to think that his name even once lingered on either of their peasant tongues- he should occupy their minds, yes, but as an unobtainable, unspeakable divinity, _not_ as a topic to discuss playfully over lunch.

“Juicy Fruit- the gum, duh?” His laughter slows with huffs and puffs and coughs as he straightens back up, his knee slap position unfolding as he returns to speaking stance. He rolls his tongue out flagrantly, flashes the piercing so ungracefully positioned too far to the left-

Togami notes his disuse of the stool, certainly not as tall as tall, blond, and handsome but certainly taller than the mere stick of a man who’d struggled to reach his cigarettes with even a step stool. His height attests, along with his features, that he is nowhere near as… interesting, as Naegi had been. This… redhead is as a commoner should be- completely insignificant in his life, nothing but another figure- the only thing that had made his identity pertinent is, of course, his indirect mention of Naegi.

He mentally beats himself with a birch switch for even allowing himself to become this piqued, this far fallen into his curiosity where he is known as the name of a gum brand to the public.

“Man!” He exclaims, continues his degradation in haughty tones. Togami is double sided as usual- cares not that such low lives had nothing better to do but make up nicknames for him, but cares much about the consequences and the annotations and connotations and- oh!

“Eggs said ‘bout you. I thought you’d be god himself the way he described you.” He chuckles to himself, cracks his knuckles and looks back up to meet completely blank blues of boredom. “He’s just short ‘n ugly I guess.”

That snide little comment earns himself the automatic-dignity-destroying laughter at his own joke. It’s cringeworthy how funny he truly seems to find himself- Togami speaks up, no, not to defend Naegi, who he’s only just met and does not like at. All. But to crush that irritating arrogance that the redhead has no right in having. Surely not when he appears to Togami as a synonym to both insults mentioned prior.

“And to call him such names, your relationship with him is-?”

He sneers again, leans slightly over the counter to impose full stature on the shorter, he visibly shrinks, clears his throat and wipes imaginary sweat off his forehead. The Open! Open! Sign casts light streaks of red and blue across his piercings.

“Yea- yea, we’re good buds,” He brightens a wee bit, stands a little taller to try and recover from the lightning storm that is Togami Byakuya.

A long note of quiet, the fluorescent lights buzz, his bag in hand crinkles as he shifts his weight. The redhead has an attention span of .005 seconds and the memory of a relapsing Alzheimer patient, he blooms back into the annoyance he’d been before the scare in mere seconds.

“If he likes you- Haha!” He laughs, continues babbling before Togami can even begin to enact his vengeance for the constant embarrassment that comes involuntarily from even knowing Naegi Makoto’s name. oops.

“He needs to get laid, honestly- you should tot-“

And Togami is crimson in his cheeks, his collarbone, his forehead. He’s felt the warmth of pink in mild shame, but never the flame of angry uncomfortableness that comes as a two in one package with the gall of a stranger to suggest he _hook up_ with someone he’s just met- and a nobody at that.

“Shut up right now.”

That’s all he can defend himself with, the only verbal sword he is currently strong enough to wield. His muscles are weakened by embarrassment, by the shock of such an accusation paired with the fact that the thought of knowing Naegi biblically doesn’t fill his throat with bile like it would with anyone else- even someone he’d known for years.

As he storms from the storefront with heels clacking angrily, all he can hear is the cashier’s cackling behind him, laughter of a psycho youth pent up with a dead end job-

All he’d needed was coffee filters, there was no way he was going to allow himself to believe that the two or three encounters he’d had with the boy actually gave his thoughts permission to go that far. So many things fight his will, he’s not sure where to begin and where to end. He slips back into his car and grips the steering wheel- pink in the face.

Murmurs to himself silently, “This is beginning to be a problem.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna start adding the song I listened to while I wrote so this one is Budapest by George Ezra

He awakes at the precipitous crack of dawn, bands of shimmering, morning sun stream through the outdated, picnic basket checkered curtains, drawn, but not enough to keep the light at bay. It’s a Saturday, his countdown calendar till he takes his leave is nearly one week through- just three more. That was all.

He wipes drowsiness from powder blue eyes with the back of his hand, sits up on his palms and leans back against the corroded metal poles that imitate a headboard. Togami finds serenity in the weekend, glad to have a day off. Though it’s his own doing that keeps him at work for so long, that strains his hands so strenuously he’s sure to have carpal tunnel by 30, the relax among downy, hand-knit quilts is lovely.

Though, he notes, never as lovely as his California King in his penthouse, lined with 3000 thread count, navy blue sheets.

He stares up at the popcorn on his ceiling- textured by a builder who’d had to be blind to make such an irresponsible decision. The incident with the flame-haired cashier had noticeably discomfited him, shaken his sober sense of identity and belonging to a higher class than those around him. It had only intensified whatever the hell it was, swimming and lurking in the once crystal clear waters of his brain, which he feels toward Naegi.

Gah, feelings. Feelings, to Togami, are nothing short of tiny devils with sharp claws and rabid grins. They’re minions of bad luck and heartache- something he is far too unfamiliar with to try and relate to. All feelings have ever caused for him are issues at work- headaches and stomachaches and all in between- and the ruination of his off days- He can envision them now- tiny, inky, humanoid creatures with nails of sharp, slick, steel.

He simply cannot fathom, his eyes follow a strand of ridged stucco overhead, how half a fortnight has managed to blemish his black and white cloak of superiority. He was becoming one of them! The very thought makes him shudder deep in his vertebrae, a sickly drop of heart into his stomach threatens to ruin a perfectly fine morning.

Never, not once in his years, had anyone in his lavish city life managed to cause such disruption. Never had any of the big-chested, dollar sign flaunting women he’d been introduced to by his ‘loving’ father ever had any effect on him other than absolute detachment. But nor had there ever been a man, there was never anyone to capture Togami’s interest- and he cannot cannot believe that of all the places to develop such interest- it had to be Hillbilly Hell.

It’s in the way Naegi… exists. Against all odds, someone as lumbar as he, had been blessed with the talent to catch the eye of someone as heavenly high as Togami Byakuya. Naegi’s tender movements, the way he seems to sometimes think before acting and sometimes not think at all- but regardless, his eyes glint with a humble sense of intelligence that Togami finds himself yearning to look further into. His entire being screams, spills, leaks kindness and generosity, but he does not fill the part of an overly optimistic idiot. Optimism oozes from his words, his smile, his speech, but he is not an idiot. Togami can say that from the meager time they’d spent in person-

He is so extraordinarily ordinary that Togami hates, hates, loathes his guts. He wants to tear them out and be in them all at once- and that thought makes his heart stutter and he has to cough into his fist abashedly despite the lack of audience to be embarrassed in front of- he’s alone.

He’s never been an emotional creature- certainly not when it comes to romance, friendliness, or sex, but the packet of Juicy Fruit gum on his nightstand- whittled down to two sticks left- is a testament to his unanticipated whirlwind change of heart. He still refuses to admit his so-called 'crush', but he has come to terms with the fact that maybe he does want to get to know Naegi Makoto just a little bit more.

Moreover, Togami realizes, sitting straight up and gliding to his feet, he is Togami fucking Byakuya. He does what he wants when he wants in whatever fashion he so pleases- it would all work out because the world is his toy, bends to his wish and will, of course. Whether or not he felt anything for the five-foot nada gas station clerk is nothing to be concerned about-

Right?

* * *

 

The arrival of Monday brings with it the return of work, and his alarm notifies him of that fact. He’s rapid in his getting ready, fixing coal-colored necktie around high collar of white button up, hot ironing delicate, blond strands. Even rapider In his driving- his engine roars and it’s the same smoky interior as every day since his first.

The weekend had been restful, physically, but otherwise, it had been nothing short of a triathlon complete with Olympic effort. He’d spent the entirety of his precious time lying in bed and thinking, wondering, pondering over the changes in his marble heart since the day he’d arrived. He’s allowed himself to be more… casual. And he isn’t sure whether or not he’s able to accept that yet.

Nonetheless, Togami sits at his desk and files paperwork, drags folders from corners of his blank, impersonal desktop. The day so far has been calm, easy, no humiliations or uproar of strange new feelings and thoughts. His mind whirs, confused at his soul’s ability to ignore the emotional mental issues consuming his life at the moment. He works confidently and without pause, but as with most of his days so far, Kirigiri drops in- he can only hope she doesn’t bring with her another sphere of debilitating-ly embarrassing incidents, as she’s so gleeful in doing.

“Hey, someone needs to see you.”

Her voice sings no telltales, plays no games. There is no smirk on her face or glitter in her eyes. She forces lavender braid behind her ear, her hands hang limp at the midsection of short business skirt. His head snaps up from pools of times new roman font and he narrows his eyes at her gaze, slits of electric blue question her sudden loss of personality.

He expects someone important, an executive, an official, someone here to see him on business, on an important inquiry over business. So he stands slowly, caution drips from his every move, slow, yet confident in every step towards the door. He squeezes out of the narrow gap she leaves behind her as she pulls out and backs away, presumably towards his visitor.

His eyes fall on the important authority come to see him- and he’s never been more mortified in his entire life (not even when he’d spilled paint on himself in his third grade private school in front of the whole class.)

Naegi Makoto breaks out that huge grin, bounces on red canvas sneakers and calls out- his voice is like honey in tea and broken glass shards on a chalkboard all at once

“Thanks for fetching him, Kiri!”

He turns to ‘kiri’, and the entire façade falls to the floor in a brilliant curtain's reveal of her plot. She’d known exactly who had come for him- and her lack of causality hadn’t been due to formality, but rather due to her sly, snakelike, slippery demeanor. She’d tricked him.

She hums, that godawful smirk flashes for a half a second- falls as she pulls back on her false hood of purity- and she strides off with ticking stilettos and a braid cast over her shoulder once again- her aura mocks, “haha- got you!”

So he turns, face slack with disbelief at the ploy used to lure him from the safety of his office. Naegi wears a military green tshirt, It hangs loose over his skinny frame, the front of it tucked into his darkwash jeans. The lack of belt to tie the whole thing together is a fashion monstrosity- but the unkempt state of brunet tufts and chapped lips (likely from an unfaltering smile- did this boy smile in his sleep too!?) suggests that he isn’t one to care for appearance.

“So… Uhm,” He begins, his voice is unsteady, and it complements the shaky smile he dons, “go out with me?”

The both of them erupt at once, and Togami is a stumble backwards to his business shoes squeaking on waxed tile floors, spluttering in utter incredulity, and Naegi is a hand slapped to forehead and a groan of agony from the outright, disgraceful suddeness of his question.

The shorter shakes his head violently, hair puffs up like a wet dog shaken, and he blurts out another senseless babble of words strung together in an attempt to redeem himself.

“Sorry! You’re really-“ He stops himself short, takes a deep breath. His face blisters red, smile flipped to sheepish but not erased, “I meant like, would you want to go on a- uhm- a date… or something?”

Togami just stares- contemplating and completely unable to think all in one oxymoronic moment, and his resting bitch face shakes the already shaken even further- more angry ants storm out of the kicked anthill that is Naegi Makoto’s ability to fathom and speak. He must take the completely-shell-shocked-into-oblivion face that the other wears the wrong way because he shakes that mane again and seethes in humiliation.

“I’m sorry, You’re just like- really… handsome? and... cool? I should have figure-“

“Yes.”

His shoulders tremble for a second- his hands wring and then he’s looking up into shaded blues, confusion writes itself into his features.

“W-what?”

“Yes, I’ll accompany you.”

He very purposely leaves out the ‘date’ part because that high school terminology has long since been banished from his vocabulary. He’d commended himself on realizing that he could very well do what he pleased about his feelings, and had come to enjoy the idea of getting to know Naegi just enough to not want to run him over with his car. He mocks the surprise with a roll of eyes and a light scoff, places a hand on his hip to speak lengths to his lean figure.

Naegi’s face just lights up- hazels twinkle in mixed amazement and delight. He pushes bangs out of the way of his plush features, giggles like a schoolgirl and clasps his hands together to further that image. He looks so impossibly relieved that Togami feels himself a saint to have agreed to the boy’s proposal- he’d of been devastated otherwise- (who wouldn’t, if turned down by the breathtaking Togami Byakuya?)

It’s an awkward dance of silence and Naegi’s pull of phone from his baggy pants pocket- The exchange of phone numbers is an orchestration that reminds him of the wonders of high school in both pleasant and unpleasant ways- but he gets through it without having to second-guess himself. He’d said he wanted to know more about this boy- and that’s what he was doing.

Besides, he tells himself silently as he punches his number into a blackberry with a cracked screen, he needed someone to show him around this Podunk town anyways- and who better than a native?

“Call me when you get off work?”

The timid little tone only amplifies the tininess of his being- the freckles dance on his cheeks as he’s forced to stare up an entire neck breaking foot at Togami’s regal complexion.

“Sure.”

Again, senseless agreement. The informality of his new personality seems to be a bit out of whack.

Naegi turns, waves once, twice, thrice, and scurries out the door, and unbeknownst to the boy, Togami can see him through glass front doors as he fist pumps in the parking lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I dont like timeskips but bear with me :0


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i listened to Toes- Glass Animals which is completely unrelated to the chapter but whatever ;)

Togami splays himself lazily over the arm of the couch, its cushions plush despite its rickety wooden frame. They’re sewed and dyed to match the cherry and cream checkerboard draperies, and it’s so country that he feels his return home will need to be accompanied by a bleaching of his eyes to jettison the very existence of such a décor technique.

His lengthy digits curl around the boring blank colorless of his phone case, he stares into the void of the sleeping screen to his mirror image reflected therewithin. His bored expression speaks truths about this city’s nightlife, or lack thereof. He’d come home from work after his encounter with Naegi to laze on the couch and ponder his next move, he considers, clicks his phone to open, stares at impersonal default home screen and flicks to his contacts. His finger hangs over, around, next to: Naegi’s name, fresh in his phone and in his mind.

He’d only gotten home about a mere hour ago, and with the time it would take him to primp and pretty himself for his ‘date’, he feels it’s about time he calls Naegi, as requested.

He clicks the button, confidence flows through his royal veins, he smirks as he begins the dial. The tone resonates into his fine-tuned ear, and he relaxes into the cushions, awaits the reply that’s sure to come, considering the enthusiasm that fills Naegi’s very being every time he lies eyes on Togami. It’s ten seconds, eleven, twelve, thirteen, and then the giveaway click of the line being answered piques his smug attention.

“Hello?”

“Mm, Naegi- It’s-“

Naegi suddenly decides it necessary to deafen his delicate ears with an ear raping screech of static and crumpling, he’s presumably dropped his phone, flung it, or otherwise, and Togami cannot help the dramatic roll of blues that momentarily clouds his vision.

“Hi! Hi, how are you?”

He’s laughing, as usual, his voice light and casual, out of breath as if he’d startled himself when he noted the caller ID. He sounds a bit sheepish, but that’s nothing new, considering their every meeting so far has been humiliating for the both of them, though Togami blames that mostly on the other. He graces the other boy with a response to answer, pulls on a strand of his blond side bangs like an antsy grade-schooler with a phone call from his crush.

“Fine… You?”

The question burns the inside of his mouth, twists his stomach into knots. This is likely the first time he’s ever asked for someone’s wellbeing- and Christ, all it took to soften him was a week of knowing a five foot country boy from the gas station with lithe little hips and big hazel eyes and a toothy grin. It’s ruined him as a businessman forever and beyond, he’s stained and destroyed- never will he return to being the heartless creature he was before his arrival here- before his meeting with the- dare he say- cutest boy he’s met to this day.

“I’m good! I’m just at home.”

He can practically see the little, knowing grin slipping across the boy’s pink lips. He’d made a good call- being the first to dial Naegi’s number. He very well could’ve waited for the boy to call him first, and he would have, of course, so excited in the shining light of Togami’s agreement to wax into the position of his date. He’s just so damn smart- so damn sly- he’s nearly got Naegi wrapped around his little finger- a three hundred and sixty-degree coil around the fair skin of his smallest phalange. Naegi ruins his arrogant spiel with his honey-and-glass-on-a-chalkboard voice-

“I dunno if you’re into, uhm…- informal date stuff?”

He clears his throat, obviously nervous now that the real rendezvous has come time to commence. He wavers in his speech, continues to out himself anyway.

“I’m kind of broke, so…”

He’d feel a smidge of second-hand embarrassment if Naegi hadn’t admitted it so nonchalantly, but he supposes financial status and class isn’t that imperative in this jerkwater town. He coughs, it’s obviously muffled by a fist or something of the like, just to break the silence. Togami decides it’s time to talk about himself, which he so loves doing, and Naegi needs to hear more about him, anyway. He’s obviously already six feet under in his curiosity towards the city boy- and vice versa, for the whole of the past week.

“I’m not broke.”

He smirks, he’s sure Naegi can hear the expression of his tone, feel the pride drooling, cascading from every character of his speech. The ‘broke’ sucks a breath of air in through his teeth, sighs out them in the same breath.

“I asked YOU out- I’m suppose’ to pay. Besides, I kinda wanted to show you around!”

His enthusiasm bursts back in with open arms. Togami understands what he’s insinuating, and going to Naegi’s home in the twilight of late evening on a work night is not the best idea, but he doesn’t fight it. A man’s home tells his story twice as well as words- and Togami wants to know every little thing about it- even if it means spending hours in a home just like the residence he stays in now- picnic blanket curtains, rustic wood furniture and all. The normal Togami would deny that claim faster than the speed of light itself, never would accept such a low-budget informal proposition, but the new Togami- stained with gooey _feelings_ and Naegi Makoto’s Juicy Fruit gum (The last piece currently a yellow glob between his molars) agrees without hesitation, with little consideration.

“I’ll be there, then.”

A little jaunt of address exchange- he places the line into his GPS, checks the ETA and raises to his feet. He bids Naegi goodbye, clicks the call to a beat of silence- hung up- and smiles with delightful satisfaction. His stride into the bathroom, joint with his bedroom, is quick paces of long, lean legs and a striking stop in front of the mirror. He needn’t groom and tidy, he’s perfection encased in a gold-star figure as he is now- lazy expression and mussed white-button-up, top two buttons undone to let collarbone breathe the air.

Still, it’s an hour to his brushing his hair, filling in his eyeliner, glossing his lips, and staring at himself through alluring slits of eyes. He’s just so everything he can’t help it, he’s just so handsome, sexy, wonderful- the confidence is a blessing and a curse- chases away anyone threatened by it, which he considers a good thing, but attracts those too desperate for an attractive partner- of course, Naegi can’t be called desperate- Togami is just as mind-bogglingly interested. He’s no room to be a hypocrite.

He’s done and out the door in an hour and fifteen point four minutes to be completely exact, and he’s transferring his phone’s GPS to his car’s, luminescent, radioactive blues of the dash illuminating angular features. The drive is a little longer than he would’ve wished, but it isn’t pertinent- especially not when the little seed of, oh my god, can he say- excitement? Unfurls into his gut and blossoms when he pulls into the strangest little place he’s ever seen.

A gravel road travels a few meters back, his big, black auto protests to the offroading, but he’s soon to slow, pulling next to a beat-up red pickup near what seems to be an unattached garage. His headlights fade as he turns the engine off- submerged in the darkness of night and cooled by late year crispness in the air, he rises out of the car and leans forward on the edge of his door with his elbows, takes in the surrounding yard- and the house in front of him.

The little two-story is lit up- a few windows on each floor brightened up with soft yellow light that pours out and paints the chipped white siding a cream hue. The sparkling is faint- dimmed by drapery and old, dirty windows. The rickety, wood porch is attached to the front side of the house poorly, years of neglect have deteriorated the place’s quality. He wonders if Naegi’s not the money to hire a contractor- thinks himself correct considering the boy’s former ‘broke’ statement. Still, is Naegi not capable of home repair? - is his home absent of a brother to aid him? A father?

He shakes the thoughts off with grace, glances around the front-most yard. His eyes cast over the treeless area, clumps of dry, broken foliage littered here and there, pile up into a collection of old cars and mechanical items. He’s seen worse garbage, much worse, but it’s still a bit unsettling, the pileup of three or four old, abandoned vehicles, casting eerie shadows over the tufts of prairie grasses and vines grown up over their rusty chassis like snakes.

He hops up the first few steps, jumps in surprise at the bottom step, what appears to be nothing more than a piece of driftwood, floated in from the sea, nearly snapping out of place as he puts his weight on it. Takes a deep breath, readies himself, and reaches up to pull the little, faded brass knocker back to alert his presence. It’s cold as all hell out here- or the opposite of hell, he supposes, and he’d like to get inside if this is where he’s going to be spending his evening, his first ‘date.’

There’s a hush fallen over the barren landscape around the house- it’s a little ornament in the middle of fuckville, nowhere, and its… not as unpleasant as he would have thought.

The doorframe shakes, sticks for a moment, and swings open inwards to reveal its inhabitant. Somehow it’s fitting that Naegi Makoto, young soul, lives in such an old house.

His face brightens like the lighting of a candle, capricious flickering, the scented kind one would purchase from those overpriced hipster stores- butter pecan ice cream, clean linens, Tropical Island. It caresses his senses so nicely.

His hazels shimmer brightly, greys and lightest touches of brown illuminated in his mixing bowl irises, his cheekbones dust with the purple hues of late night overhead- shadows of long lashes cast over his face with the glow of the porch light above.

“Come in, it’s so cold outside!”

Naegi busies himself with laughter, he gently reaches to take Togami’s coat, pulls at the upper sleeve of it in such an innocent way the taller can’t help but to shrug it off and allow him to throw a 500 dollar coat onto an iron coatrack near the front door.

The place reminds him of his current residence, but more… lived in. A half knit scarf lies over the back of a rocking chair- the furniture is a set- redwood sculpted into pieces of living space, adorned with hideous yellow and green patterned cushions- a small loveseat and rocking chair- completed by coffee table covered in People magazines and glasses forgotten by the dishwasher. A shag rug lies a little out of alignment with the rest- it’s homey in a way he doesn’t understand. He’s never even thought of his own home as _homey_ before- it’s a first.

Naegi locks the front door, as he’d unlocked it to let Togami in, and when he pulls the stubborn, stuck-in-its-frame door closed, paintings swish and swing on the wall beside the door with the aches in the shaky old walls.

“I live here with my mom and sister. Ko’s on her way to college soon- but she’s with a friend right now. My mom is at work, she’ll be back ‘round noon tomorrow.”

He smiles, the suggestion of a night alone is both atrocious and delicious- the sliver of his mind who wants nothing more than to spend hours getting deeper into Naegi’s head. Lying close to the little brunet for hours and- God! How ruined he’s become has only been highlighted in neon since his knocking on the door!

“Your sister?” He inquires, raises an eyebrow and follows Naegi’s movements passed the living area, passed the ash-filled fireplace, towards the entryway to what seems to be the kitchen, “Why have you not gone to college?”

“Oh,” Naegi tries to laugh it off, clasps hands behind him and stands within touching distance, just in front, “I’m too dumb for that stuff.”

Togami scoffs, narrows his eyes and rolls them at the self-depreciation. Naegi doesn’t seem that kind of person. Humble, yes, but not self-loathing, and it doesn’t suit him to be so. He’s nothing to hate, genuinely kind but not gullible and imbecilic, he’s a happy man, and though Togami is yet to know everything about him, he obviously isn’t the kind to shun at least attempting in the face of being too incompetent. He is the incarnation of the phrase, “If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

“Untrue, I believe. You’ve proved yourself rather smart.”

Naegi blossoms cheeks pink, steps back into the kitchen, and Togami trails him like a loyal hound.

“Ah, thank you…”

The kitchen is different from his own place, black and white tile hopscotch lines the floor, it squeaks and swears beneath their shoes, red canvas followed by black business. Naegi suddenly flips around- flushes shame and coughs into his elbow. He presses the small of his back to the faux granite counter- he shields from view a stack of copper pans and light green plates. Dirtied from use and abandoned, left to dry on scraps and stains.

“Sorry- I didn’t get a chance to clean up- I know you’re probably used to your dates living in expensive homes and-“

Togami answers that statement with a raise of eyebrows- a cross of lank arms over taut chest. He stands taller, puffs his pride out scornfully. Naegi’s comment is rather offensive, he thinks, to suggest he has so many past lovers that he’d set some sort of standard for their homes.

“Don’t be so quick to assume me a slut, Naegi.”

His voice falls monotone, threat lingers silently, imposing and intimidating. He’s definitely trying to strike a bit of fear into the boy’s heart, but only to completely deeply root the idea that he is not a man of flamboyant, rampant romance. He’s as unskilled as the country boy is, and he feels it necessary to make that known, but of course, only in the most arrogant of ways.

“Ah! No, no, no! I meant, like…” He blushes bleeding red to match the decorative utensils hanging below the Cherrywood cabinet. His blush, the décor, and the fixtures all complement each other nicely, an aesthetic mood board titled, “brilliant reds.”

“You’re really… hot and stuff.” Flushes deeper, bites his lip to bleeding bruising. “You probably get lots of dates.”

He offers a wavering smile in truce, his chuckle light and nervous. He bites fingernails, averts his eyes to anywhere but Togami’s knowing features. He sighs, straightens up and allows his posture a moment of relax.

“You’re sorely mistaken. I reserve my time only for those who deserve it.”

 _God damn_ , when did he get so smooth?

He instills himself waves of arrogance, confidence, handsomeness, stands all six feet five inches to the entire length and looks Naegi deeply in those shimmering eyes, clouded round by embarrassment and slight terror. It’s not as though his statement was a lie fabricated for the sole purpose of making him sound suave, he’s telling the whole truth. Naegi rewards his flirt with a squeak and cover of his cheeks as he spins back around to hide his embarrassment. He grips a dirty pan, tosses it in the sink to busy himself, to hide his complete mortification at what he believes to be a failure of a date thus far.

Togami comes to stand astride him, at sink side. His eyes filter over the nasty of a cesspool of dishes conjured up by a house lived in by three people. He’s lived alone all his adult life, had maids do all his work, but he thinks it an impossible, sickeningly sweet gesture when he grips the handle of the nervously discarded pan and begins to run lukewarm water from the shiny metal faucet over its filthy surface.

“I’ll wash, you dry?”

He smiles, the gentlest thing he’s done since he was a small child. All his ‘smiles’ have been since his becoming a businessman are smirks, smugness, deceit, lies, but this, this is special. It’s real, kind, and he feels a warmth in his chest that he’s now willing to welcome.

Naegi tries his hardest to protest, huge eyes stretched to saucers and red cheeks remain since the earliest abashment. He makes an attempt to do it all himself, selfless, and Togami refuses his every move. It’s nothing short of his pleasure to do anything and everything that makes little Naegi Makoto’s head spin, cheeks pulse red and heart patter pitter in his chest. Anything and everything to make him fall just as hard as Togami’s been prone to doing lately.

He washes, Naegi dries, and it’s domestically perfect. And for once in life, Togami doesn’t mind.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this might wind up being more than 14 chapters but ill fix it if it does.

The next ten minutes of his life beg his eardrums completely burst, every breathing moment of silence staked in the heart with repetitive thankfulness pouring. Naegi wallows in gratitude with constant reminders of how grateful he is for the help in the kitchen. He thanks senseless, Togami’s headache grows. He pleads with the taller, “Don’t do anything more, you’ve already done more than enough!” and he again brings to their shared attention the ripe night ahead of them- it is theirs, an infant ideal, and they’ll shape it as they please.

Togami’s frame of mind is ruptured catastrophically, split in two on the jagged ridge of a fault line, Earthquake Naegi Makoto has brought ruin to the lush cities of his psyche. The rip in the very fabric of his unerring brain diverges in two halves- He considers leaving soon, on one end, on the shorter end of the stick, he’s dreading the 8 hours of paperwork on the morrow. Yet on the other, he could play the fool, stay up late with promises of an endearing night, get to know Naegi in the most elaborately simple of ways.

Togami Byakuya is not a liar, he’s sure to remind himself of that as he follows sneaker steps out of the tidy kitchen (done so by his meticulous hand and impeccable eye for detail- or dirt.) He doesn’t plan to lie, all the same, he infers, he merely schemes to shroud the truth if he shows up late for work. A little mistake swept under the rug had never dissuaded his ethics before. But it’s ever the truth that his ‘nevers’ and ‘always’ have been nothing short of utterly overturned from the time of his arrival.

Naegi is leading him, and again, he follows. The living room, still as bent out of shape as it had been prior to their kitchen escapades, opens up to the right turn from the front door and leads down a hallway. It’s nearly what he’d call a tight fit, low ceilings, narrow corridors, as is common with most of the old country homes. He’s no claustrophobe, but he can’t say the feeling of the roof about two inches from his princely cephalic doesn’t drive him mad. Any wrong step and he’ll be out with a concussion for days, weeks, a coma, for sure. He just knows it.

“There’s a lot I could show you in this old place.”

Naegi chirps back over his shoulder, little grin plays on rosy lips and he punctuates the statement with a light chuckle. He acknowledges the deteriorating state of the place readily, Togami notices, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He supposes there’s a drop of sentimentality here, which is true for most of the meaningless lives floating in and out of town, but he finds himself shuddering with sonder. He’s exposed his fragile superiority complex to far too many sentimentalities this past week- and he’s become soft.

“Oh-“

Naegi slams the breaks on their caravan, their supposed-to-be-momentary squeeze down the shaft of the tiny hallway, and Togami is a dupe to his thoughts, lost in them, drowning in the very _sentimentality_ of it all- and he’s ironed button up flat to the back of the boy’s olive jacket. Naegi is a huff of air knocked from his lungs composed with a gasp- a little strangling sound escapes his throat as he wheels around to face his assailant.

Togami doesn’t beg pardon, needn’t, because Naegi is right back to chattering- surprising little situation completely forgotten. His mind appeals to him for the suit of following, relishes the idea of letting the slip-up, tiny interaction, free fall from his iron trap conscious. He holds on with matching studded grip, flexes digits in imagery of refusing to dispel the feeling of Naegi’s weight falling back into him-

“Here, look!”

And he’s looking, but not at whatever it is that Naegi is standing tippy-toe to grab from a shelf- a near weaponry-projectile aimed right for his precious forehead. (All the Naegi’s are short, Togami draws indisputable conclusion) Instead, his blank gaze falls on the mess of cowlicks fallen back to expose his forehead- stamped with stardust specks of freckles, tiny tip of pink tongue sticks out in concentration- reaching so far for his miniature stature. The only thing he’s ‘looking at’ is the sliver of puppy tummy exposed from his extending upwards, jacket and underneath graphic tshirt lifted up with the elevated form of his sharp shoulder blades.

The image reverts to standing position, disappoints in its quick relapse to fallen shirt back over bellybutton and brunet curls to cover angel kissed forehead again. Naegi thrusts something his way, a toddler pressing an object to his leg to coerce his consideration of it, and finally, he takes a once-over. A picture frame lay over the palms of Naegi’s hands, held flat to display the picture therewithin. Its border is strangely ornate, washed blue porcelain-type, and he thinks it possibly homemade by a grandmother or something of the like. More pertinent, of course, what Naegi is currently begging his attention to, is what lies in the tender hold of the frame.

Dressed and dried in sepia, crinkled on one edge, folded a corner inward accidentally, is a rectangular photograph of a young girl- her smile stretches ear to ear, and it bears a heart-achingly shocking familiarity to someone he knows. She can’t be more than four here, tiny muss of dark hair, again- all too similar-, falls in eyes bright with happiness. Behind her, he notices, as the full story comes into his active vision, is a couple- man and woman- linked arm in arm. The woman waves towards the camera- mouth half open in a call to her children.

And of course- lingering towards the edge of the photo- nearly an indistinguishable blur from the sporadic movements of a boy younger than 10- is Naegi. The bit of his face that shows is missing it’s front two teeth in a huge, dopey grin to match his sisters and the twenty-something aged Naegi sighs with a narcotic nostalgia upturn of lips.

“That’s Komaru, my sister,” His finger points to the obvious, “That’s my mom and dad, and that’s-“

Togami clears his throat in interruption- is marveled at by big starry eyes.

“That’s you.”

Naegi answers his blatancy with a disorienting head bob of nodding, smiles that smile but this time with teeth. He’s lazily laissez-faire in his explanation of the photo- a birthday party for the girl front and center, and he’s just barely listening- just sort-of watching the movements of lips and sparkling to eyes- gestures to picture in his left hand. Togami thinks himself worthy to pry, obviously, the man standing far to the back strikes his interest- or rather, his absence does.

“Your father. You never mentioned his presence here.”

It’s a question without a question, he’s sure to get an answer, unafraid to delve into personal things when Naegi has already managed to destroy his iron-fort walls around his cold exterior.

“Ah,” He is silent a beat, and his face falls truly flat. Togami’s yet to see a loss for words- loss for smile and laughter, on his face, but it stares him into the void now- his lips tug _downward_ in a sigh and a stretch, stretch, streeetch to place the photo back on the protruding shelf.

“He died a long time ago.”

He leaves it at that, and Togami, for once, lets it rest. The unaccustomed shock of seeing the jovial boy’s mood depress so dreary reminds his typically arrogant inconsiderate course of action to derail- there’s no sense in forcing a sore subject- and he doesn’t care about Naegi’s father anyway- only the here, only the now.

Naegi continues down the hallway for one last, short step, and then presses a wooden door’s brass handle to open.

This room agrees with the kitchen in its lack of similarity to his own residence. Naegi’s bedroom, obviously, is quite different from Togami’s own. This house is lived in, has been lived in likely since the boy’s conception, and the square footage that belongs to him proves its ownership in posters of movies- of bands and games sprinkling the walls- in a pile of laundry aside an oak dresser with exactly six drawers- one of the knobs missing. A lump of blue and white plaid sheets hangs off the bed as if concealing a fallen cadaver. Togami hadn’t even unpacked his suitcase yet.

It’s noticeably colder in here, overhead fan whirs quietly with the effort of running on full speed- apparently all the time. It’s November and yet, his room is an icebox- Togami briefly wonders if this is where they store the perishables, just because Naegi seems to like it so cold, but he’d laid eyes on an old refrigerator in the kitchen. No, it seemed he was just an Eskimo- descendant of one, perhaps.

Naegi is oblivious to the shudder that ripples down Togami’s spine, hops up onto his woodframe bed to sit crisscross legs on the edge. He invites with a motion of pushing the comforter back up onto the bed, presents a spot next to him with a pat of his hand on blue sheets. He makes a few steps in that direction, stops short and stares. There’s nothing weird about sitting next to one’s date on their bed, but he’s still unsettled in his settling at the boy’s hip. This position grants no friendship to modesty or personal space, covalently merges their personal bubbles into one tension-filled region.

He finds relax in a deep breath and turn towards Naegi, who’s typing teenage-rapid at his phone, an answer to his message. He smiles, places his phone to his side, face down, and promptly leans in even closer. Togami’s posture seizures again, squeezes his muscles to force a sit-upright, nearly splutters in the abashed scenic of it, but it’s calm to a slight slouch when he learns Naegi’s no illegitimate intentions, he begins to speak, cocks his head sweetly and chatters away.

“I showed you my family, what about yours?” He’s upbeat in a way that suggests he thinks Togami had some sort of silver-spoon regal fairytale childhood. The taller isn’t wary to disillusion him, flexes his metacarpals and sighs, a bit overdramatically, he’ll admit, anything to bring the spotlight onto his scientist, runway-model, king-of-the-world complex.

Calling to mind memories of his childhood is less than pleasant. Such thoughts are things he’s tried since seventeen to banish, started out by smoking a pack a day, buried stress in nicotine and tobacco. Where the common man sees his life, his childhood, as lavish and lazy for his lack of chores, ease of acquiring knowledge in school in life, his amount of expensive clothing, he concurs that anything the peasant children had to deal with, he had three times as bad.

“My father is a hostile man. We didn’t get along.”

It’s true, as usual, for Togami is not a liar, and he will defend that phrase till his death day. His father was unbearably strict with him and his gaggle of ‘siblings’. They weren’t related, not really, he can’t even remember some of their names. He can’t recall when he’d been plucked from his mother, can’t recall even if she lives to this day or not, and he makes that known to Naegi. It feels so outlandishly barbaric to be painting out this information without a gauze of arrogance and superiority to clothe the truth of his past-but-possibly-also-present miserableness.

Again, with his duality, he’s split all his life on whether he’s stronger for it, for the isolation from the world and the funneling into the position of almighty god of the togami corporation (thus, the world) or if he’d rather of known his siblings, seen his mother, been a son of his father. Of course, his complex treads him on the former, but it has never ridden his mind of the latter.

His quiet recount is oddly tranquil, empty of his usual viscosity and powerful outlook on his very being, and this is Naegi’s first time hearing it. Togami knows he thinks the storyteller a soft-hearted dope, and he can’t muster the energy to battle it. Thinking about such things, being so often ripped in two directions on every matter of his life and mind has tired him out. He’s work tomorrow.

“Wow,” Naegi’s irrelevant interjection is started slowly, he swallows, “That must’ve sucked- all that work as such a small kid. And your dad did _what_ if you failed?”

His eyes twinkle curiosity, his tight-lipped stagnant expression breeds concern.

“We were banished from the family name. I’m one of the first youngest to win the title on my own.”

Ah, there it is, that influx of pride rolls back in an impulsive tsunami of “oh yeah, I’m Togami Byakuya.” And he lifts nose high to near ceiling a smirk and cross of an arm over his chest. Naegi nods in silent retrospect, sighs through his nose and shakes his head. He seems to want to say more, doesn’t, rather, he just reaches out a hand to rest on the one Togami supports his weight with.

It’s a heart-jumping-into-throat phenomenon, his trachea suddenly feels heavy and full of cobwebs. He contains a cough of surprise, can’t contain the pink on his high cheekbones, and shifts slightly the appendage currently trapped under Naegi’s identical twin. He can’t stand that something so _not_ sexy, something as absolutely thirdgrade as handholding, in comfort, no less, has his face stained so.

He needs not comfort, his backstory lies exactly there, _back_ , in the past, long ago. He clears his throat, allows the smaller, tanner hand to encompass his palm in an easy grip. Naegi smiles, cocks his head in, again, concern, because Togami is so flustered at something so stupid.

“You’re going back there?- The city, I mean? You said you had a temporary-“

And his autonomic automatic mechanical response is, “yes, yes, there’s no place like home!” but with his current recounting, remembrance of home- a multimillion dollar mansion so big it takes three addresses to ship to, but filled to the brim with children nose deep in calculations and contracts with no knowledge of their twelve siblings living in the same building- that isolated- he’s not sure he even considers his new apartment home. It’s home in the sense of luxury, a California king, porcelain fixtures, help at his every whim, but he feels no attachment- only desperate to get back to it now to spite the homely little cabin he’d been given to stay in, temporarily.

 “I don’t know,” He answers honestly, yet, he disguises it as he’s gotten so good at doing lately, “…the job here pays well.”

Makoto is untrimmed eyebrows lifted, mouth o’d in surprise, “You don’t- You could stay!?”

He’s UFO eyes all brimming with bright lights of the flickery glow of his fan overhead, sits upright in shocked position.

“You seem eager to hear me say otherwise.”

He matches raised eyebrows, contrarily, with a challenging glare. Naegi’s shock means several things, this, Togami is aware of, but he likes the “oh no no no!” that tears itself from rapidly apologizing lips when Togami is sure to suggest the rudest-case scenario.  _Obviously_ , the likeliest, truest of options for tender heart Naegi Makoto's surprise is absolute speechlessness at the notion of The Togami Byakuya residing here more permanently, and the permanent feeling that adheres itself to their current... predicament (‘relationship?’, he thinks, shudders.) _Obviously_ Naegi isn’t impacted negatively at Togami’s uncertainty to his return ‘home’, but the teasing is interesting, the emotions drive him wild.

“Ah- I’d like if you stayed.”

Is the conclusion to his spiel of “no, that’s not what I meant!” he polishes the cutesy compliment with a smile, the lilt to his voice is irresistible, he begs to be bothered, to be teased and played with. But Togami’s not here to play- he’s here to work, to be serious in one hundred percent meaning of the word. And he is serious- about his work with Kirigiri’s business, about his distaste for everything country, even about little Naegi Makoto- who steals gum from his work and gives it to strangers.

He’s serious.

“I’ve got a while to think about it.”


	9. Chapter 9

Togami would say the most pleasing way to wake up is alone. It’s mornings with no sound- the room around him still, sans his waking breaths. It is perfect temperature as he slides lengthy, pallid legs out from their den of comforter and satin sheets, and it is waltzing into bamboo hardwood kitchen with quartz-granite countertops for a cup of void-black coffee- and if it would so tickle his fancy- perhaps a spike of single malt scotch. The perfect start to the perfect man’s day.

But distinguishing between fantasy and reality has always been a task of ease for him- and he’s impossibly sure that his leg which hangs off the side of the bed must be frostbitten. He’s marred and dazzled with gooseflesh, shivers as he takes his first awoken breath- eyes peel open with a grogged huff- confusion paints him a fool to his observer. Naegi sits at the end of the bed- and it rushes back in a semi-truck-headlights barreling towards him in memory’s return.

Naegi says nothing, his resting face a smile (how could it be anything else?) But Togami is a sudden clench of heart, drop of stomach- his mistakes have begun their biting of him; he’s going to be late for work, the golden of morning sun shimmering through frosty window pane attests that it is much later than 6 am. He groans quietly, drops his head, which he’d lifted in his confused glance around his whereabouts, back against a single pillow. Naegi slept with just two- and Togami had pointed that his neglect of proper neck support will come back to haunt him in old age.  As usual, he’d just smiled- laughed.

He’d allowed himself this torture- told himself it’d be right proper for him to stay over the night and explain himself with a shrouded truth to Kirigiri when he finally decided to show up to work. Last night hadn’t been the sensual suavity he’d hoped to pull off- rather an awkward little worrisome from the boy- “you can sleep in the bed if you’re staying over- I’ll just grab a cot!” And it’d taken him about five minutes of ostentatiously discreet reasoning to convince him that- as dates- it was superfluous to suggest they act like seventh graders at a sleep-over birthday party. They could sleep together- it didn’t have to be promiscuous to do so- which he supposes is what Naegi had been so worried about.

of course. Togami is never one to beg in lieu of persuade- he’d been absolutely poised- debonair, reasoned like a seasoned debater. Suggested they sleep near because Naegi’s room is an igloo- he’s a gentleman when he wants to be- and in the moment prior to their sleep- he’d flicked on his chivalry switch and proposed he not kick Naegi from his own bed- Had his intentions not been clouded with thoughts of feasible intimacy- the old Togami would have easily had Naegi sleeping with the dogs- would’ve been disturbed at the very notion of sleeping with another person- a gas station clerk at that. The old Togami wouldn’t even _be_ here- so the New Togami is quite pleased he’d managed to pull off the mask for a single night. (Though his façade of hot-headed misanthropy hasn't been screwed on tight enough since the night of gas station encounter, he decides instead to ignore that.)

His kick back to the present- the tear away from reliving last night’s strange little encounter- is Naegi, who swaps his sitting position to lie back against the footboard- waves three fingers curled and chuckles at the clouds in Togami’s just-woken eyes. He’s clad in the graphic tee he’d had on last night, plaid pajama pants fall loosely around wiry legs. And Togami shifts uncomfortable, screws his face at the stiff scrape of his slacks- his business attire- being slept in. He might have been susceptible to the idea of sleeping side by side, but stealing Naegi’s clothing isn’t quite on the table yet, and he’s about one hundred and one percent sure that nothing of Naegi’s is going to be long enough to fit him anyways.

“Hey,” He’s a tilt of head in good morning greetings, “You okay?”

The string of faces Togami’s pulled since he’d awoken must’ve finally piqued interest from the other- He crawls a bit closer, sits nearer to long legs- only one of the two limbs still protectively nestled under blankets to protect from icy ceiling fan winds. He’s sure he could win an Academy Award for the last few moments- confusion, realization, and the sudden somewhat-meaningful shock of registering his mistakes all rolled into a few vivid, sleep-emphasized expressions.

“Fine.” He clears his throat, braces himself on palms flat to mattress to push himself to sit against the headboard. Naegi is a shift ever closer, leans against the headboard in his opposite spot to gaze.

“I really didn’t think you’d ever… yknow.”

And Togami is a sigh and a hand wiping his eyes with pinched index and thumb because no- he doesn’t ‘yknow.’ He shakes his head, reaches with empty, groping hand for his glasses, finds relief in their existence right where he’d placed them and settles them atop his sculpted bridge. Naegi puffs cheeks in pouting ponder- wonders to himself on how to better phrase it to try and dial down the amount of embarrassment he might cause. The both of them have encountered enough humiliation to last a lifetime- and Naegi blames himself the cause.

“I didn’t think you’d ever like me at all-“

That raises the tiniest bit of bemusement- a smirk paints Togami’s lips as his first normal facial expression of the day, and he answers before Naegi can even finish. Yawns quietly and responds with ease.

“I didn’t either.”

Naegi is as always a flush pink and a cough into closed fist- and Togami is an arch of back in early morning stretch- he rises to his feet with a swing of his legs to the agonizingly cold floor beneath- and he grabs his blazer off of the top of the adjacent dresser. It’d been left to the open on the coat rack prior night, but he’d had to fetch it in his late-night chat with Naegi- freezing his ass off. He’d enjoyed the talk nonetheless. Far from intimate, he supposes, but he hadn’t been shooting for touch anyways- not even the handholding Naegi had offered. He’d simply wanted to learn more about the boy- and he had. Sat through hours of recounts of saccharine nostalgic stories pouring from Naegi’s lips.

“I’m glad you do,” follows him up out of bed, stands aside him as he shrugs jacket onto his shoulder to head out of the bedroom-icebox. Padding of bare feet creaks the old wood floor under their toes, and upon their entrance to the living area, Togami is again startled- this time by the frame of a young girl standing far off in the kitchen, talking animatedly into her phone.

Naegi presses around him, has to wiggle past his stopped-in-his-tracks form smack in the middle of the hallway- far too narrow for two bodies to stand aside one another. He shoots a rapid glance up into blues, passed lenses of glasses. Togami runs a hand through his hair, hopes for a second it’s not too bedridden but knows his appearance is always that of a cover model regardless. He’s assured he’s so handsome, glad in thinking so because lately he cannot seem to stop running into strangers at the strangest of times.

“That’s my sister,” he laughs aloud, shakes his head and again- that devilish taking up of his hand in a smaller, warmer one to hold it- guides him around the furniture in the living area to arrive on nippy tiles of kitchen floor- bare feet blister pink at the cold.

The girl notes Naegi with an upturn of eyes from her gaze downward as she listens to whoever is on call with her, messy brown tresses fall around her head like she’d begun brushing- gotten halfway done- and then quit. But she’s a doubletake when the looming figure of six-foot stranger in her kitchen- behind brother dearest- becomes quite apparent.

“Hold on a sec-“ Is her murmur to her phone, she drops it to her side, “Uh, who is that?”

A rude finger is jammed his direction, and he holds his head, points his nose high in regal presentation of himself. He’s rolled out of bed and already makes a statement, perfection at its peak, he’s sure that’s what she’s thinking. But she’s not gazing at him with sparkly eyes, not swooning at his smirk, her finger holds its accusatory point for a second longer before Naegi answers.

“This is Togami- he’s, uhm.” He stutters a moment, face sudden crimson. There hadn’t been any labels placed yet, not with the small amounts of time they’d gotten to get to know each other, and Togami hates labels anyways, but it’s all in the spirit of impression- of making a deep one to the somehow-even-smaller-than-Naegi girl in front of him- hand cocked on her hip with stern little glare.

“His boyfriend.”

The smug looks that masks him is a polar opposite to the gut-dread feeling of speaking that very word. They were not boyfriends, and god he hates the term, so highschool juvenile. Childish. He prefers partner, significant other, but he’s still surefire adhered to the idea that they’re nowhere near that. Not yet. He’s barely had the time to study the boy yet (despite spending every moment looking at him- admiring, he will not admit.) But again, all to spite the narrowed green eyes cast his way by a pouty teenager. And he can just about convince himself, quite crudely, that they  _are_ dates, so maybe boyfriends _is_ the right term?

Naegi splutters, coughs into his hand with eyes widening to plates, but he takes reprise in his ability to use this as a push of chest-puffed chin raised confidante.

“Y-yea!”

He stands up a little straighter, raises his posture to mimic Togami’s haughty stance, sudden rush of confidence paints his smile a radiant glow. Togami cannot help that he’s lost focus on her- Komaru, if he remembers correctly- and that he’s mirroring the tiniest grin because it’s absolutely precious how the boy takes such pride in hearing that. He’s so lucky, Togami thinks, so lucky that he’s so-actually serious about him. All it took was nothing- this _, this nobody_ \- to completely change his life, to alter his being so dramatically that he’s having sleepovers and telling his life story like an angsty teenager- so he feels he must reciprocate. If Naegi is going to flip his world upside down and inside out, he’s going to do the same. He'll do whatever it takes to make Naegi’s life seem topsy-turved-anew, even if that means calling him _"boyfriend"._  
  
But on the other side of the kitchen is Komaru, she stares for a long beat of silence, all of a sudden rolls her eyes dramatically and turns her back to where she stood aside the counter, lifts her phone back to her ear.

“It was nothing, my brother is just being annoying.”

Naegi scoffs, sticks his tongue out at her turned back and makes a sibling-rivalry show of storming to the other side of the kitchen, tows Togami along with their linked hands to cross the hopscotch kitchen floor to the opposite end, and stands with his midsection pressed to the overhanging lip of the countertop. Old, peeling countertop tickles Togami’s hip as he leans his side against it, relaxes as he watches Naegi begin to fiddle with a single-serve coffee maker.

 He pulls it toward him on the edge of the counter and flips open its top. He looks inside its chamber and sighs, frustrated, stands tippytoe to the overhead cabinet to grasp inside for a package of instant coffee. Naegi just can’t seem to reach it- unlike his previous successful stretches, which Togami had spent the majority of staring at his figure- getting cigs in the gas station, grabbing a picture frame from a shelf. Togami tears his eyes away from vainly flexing upper arms, tshirt again rides up his waist- and grabs the box down for him. Sets it aside the coffeemaker.

“Thank you,” Is the charming little chirp from Naegi’s lips, he smiles all sweet, frustration melts away.

And so Naegi continues his fiddling with it and attempts to force the little machine to spit out whatever it can manage- black tar, he’s sure, instant coffee will never truly be the elixir of life he’s grown so attached to- deep mocha French roast in his expensive, automated coffeemaker. But it’s the effort that counts, he supposes. And Naegi gives it his all, drops Togami’s hand, which he’d never bothered to let go of, to shake up down as if that will remedy whatever is wrong with it.

It takes him all the time to ‘fix’ it that it takes Komaru to finish her phone call, and she bounces over, crosses her arms over schoolgirl uniform front and raises an eyebrow at the pair.

 “That’s broken. Mom said it doesn’t work anymore.”

Naegi sighs, closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose, sets a broken useless back on the counter He overcomes frustration with a semi-forced smile, turns to Togami and runs hands through brunet mess.   
  
“I’m sorry- stuff around here is old and-“

Togami holds a hand up to stop his blatant, redundant apologizing apologizing- keeps him from playing the fool in front of his judgmental teenage sister, “It’s no matter.”

And he’s actually _thankful_ that it quit working because he is so sick of instant coffee- instant pen ink, he can barely get it down in the morning- despite his addiction- coffee, he can go without for a morning. He’ll pick some up on his way to work- he’ll be late regardless of a few more stops- it doesn’t matter.

There’s a long beat of silence, they stand, three, on the frigid black and white tiles, and there is tranquility and awkward tension lingering in all the movements- Komaru blows a wild strand out of her eyes- Naegi shifts on his heels. He turns abruptly, reaches into the cabinet behind Togami and comes away with a box of what looks to be cereal bars. He pulls one out, rips open the packaging with a pinch of plastic between canines and offers with his free hand another bar towards Togami- towards his…maybe-sort-of-hopefully boyfriend?

He denies it, the cereal bar and the fact that he kind of likes labeling himself if it means he's the boy's loyally one and only, despite having no competition for the his affections thus far. (because he's an easily jealous man, just the hypothetical raises hairs.)- lifts his lips ever so slightly in a scowl- If this is how Naegi eats daily it’s no wonder he’s so petite, so fragile. A cereal bar for breakfast- whatever he can scrounge up at the gas station for dinner when he works- A man needs nutrition, he thinks, and Naegi isn’t getting any eating like that.

The boy shrugs, bites into 10 grams of sugar graham cracker coating over strawberry filling and speaks through a half full mouth when he gestures to Togami.

“Are you going to work?”

Togami tchs, sighs, clears his throat. He stands back to full posture, cracks his fingers and nods in answer. Komaru watches them intently, digs through a bag of trail mix dangling in her grip- seeks out the candies and tosses the peanuts back into the mix below. She points a finger at him again, munches on candy and bores into him with eyes just as vivid as her brother, brunette hair dangles like a veil. She’s all too alike him, if she was older he would confuse her for a twin-

“Where do you,” she swallows thick, “work at?”

“Hope’s Peak Academy.” He’s curt with his answer, doesn’t want to think about it much longer, would rather just get it over with- and he finds himself… eager- actually anticipates his next rendezvous with Naegi- whether it be another one of these impromptu, incredulous dates- or even feels satisfied with the idea of running into him ‘accidently’ again. No matter the humiliation it might cause, as it usually does.

Komaru shifts her weight again, seemingly minds not his disregard of her completely or his rudeness in his sharp answer- and she turns to Naegi- shoves more m&ms in her mouth-

“I’m going to my room- Mom will home by three.”

She takes off, pink phone case shimmers with sparkles in hand as rays of light stream in through the breakfast room windows. He watches her for only a moment more- she disappears from sight as she heads into that hallway they’d just emerged from- and Naegi sighs, turns to him.

Togami begins to stride away, casts glance over shoulder blade to assure the smaller is pursuing him, and heads to the front door. He shuffles slowly past rustic furniture set, averts eyes from hideous lime green-lemon yellow cushions and the abrasively clashing red-tassle lamp on the end table. He reaches the front door, glances over it in it’s old, paint-chipped frame, and he’s reaching for the handle. Fidgets with it a moment before he realizes it’s stuck- furrows brow and huffs- tugs tighter and harder- shoves his weight onto it and-

“Ah, let me get it.”

Naegi’s hand is gentle in its coming to rest atop his, presses warm and simmering. They’re so painfully close, Naegi’s standing nearly pressed to him, just aside him at the precipice of the door and he can feel heat radiating betwixt them, freshly risen from bed with mussy hair, and chapped lips and, they’re just so close, if he leaned down just a little they’d be-!

 He pulls back abruptly, snatches his hand back to his chest and coughs into his elbow to hide reddened cheeks.

Naegi thinks nothing of his reaction, hums to himself as he performs a perfect little trick, presses the knob and lifts the door slightly from its frame, pushes it. The door swings open, and he’s fantasizing to think it akin to a secret portal- Naegi the wizard- he’s the only one allowed to enter its realm- and Togami is but a foreigner, bewitched by his pull. He'd like to blame magic for this newfound attraction, but believes in it not.

The burst of morning air that floods the tiny area of coat rack and shoe shelf to constitute a foyer is cool- pleasant to Togami in its freshness and the way it pushes his half bangs off of his forehead. He’s going to be late no matter what he does- punctuality spoiled- He’s absolutely disgusted with himself for disregarding something as important as being on time for work- but its one time- and it’s his first time- (in many ways) and Kirigiri is the most indifferent person he’s ever met- besides himself, he’d think, but the way Naegi shivers with the breeze flooding the house sends a soft pang of empathy through his heart, something he wasn’t sure he had, wasn’t sure he even wanted to have.

Feeling, sensations, sentiments- affection and humiliation- things he thought himself immune to- It seems he’s caught the pathogen- all despite the vaccine of long days training himself to be void of emotion, his father’s instructions- 'never care about anything but yourself and money, son, blah blah blah.'

“It’s freaking cold out here.”

Naegi laughs all breathless, steps one foot out onto the wooden porch in bare feet, hides away near the door to shield whipping breeze. Togami takes his shoes from where he’d left them aside the door, because he doesn’t wear shoes inside- what kind of raised-in-a-barn heathen does? And steps to follow him, nods in agreement with the brisk nip of his nose and the reddening of his ear lobes. It’s cold, but he pays it no mind.

He’s not stopped thinking about his job since he’d awoken and decides to worsen his lateness further- pulls his matchbox lighter from his slacks pocket- thankful it remained there all through the last day, into the night- and flicks it to flames. Naegi looks at him curiously, cocks his head in questioning before eyes saucer into realization with a cigarette meeting pink lips and sucking in a long drag.

He sighs, doesn’t notice Naegi’s wrinkling nose as he blows a long wisp of smoke to the air around him. Only does take notice when Naegi begins to cough, he tries to hide it, stifles it with a hand and a mouth clamped shut, but he lets a little hem escape from his throat- and Togami turns to him with raised eyebrow. He thinks briefly the boy is trying to tell him something- is trying to be polite in telling him, ‘I think cigarettes are disgusting’ but there’s no case for it when the boy speaks.

He rubs his nose, ruby pink with cold, “Sorry, you’re ok. I’m asthmatic is all.”

He smiles, shows all teeth in prim little grin and relaxes as he finally shuts the door behind him, follows Togami all the way out onto the porch to stand next to him. Bare feet splay delicately on splintered, worn out wood, inch to tiptoes to avoid the icy spikes of decay- the house is old, they are young.

He can’t fathom why the boy would come closer, illness considered, but he knows the pull- knows the warmth of standing so close to someone who sets your heart on fire- he would think himself unsure of Naegi’s reciprocation- but the boy’s made it clear he obviously feels something- asked for a date, flustered at every little move, touch, confessed his appall at Togami’s return of his ‘liking him’.

So he snubs the barely-begun cigarette on wooden railing, runs nearly unsmoked ashes to paint across ridged surface trails of white and gray.

Naegi snaps to attention, hops upward a bit in his recognition, startled at the gesture- “Oh! You didn’t have to do that- I would’ve been fine-“

Togami rolls electric blues, scoffs, scowls, “I’m not paying your hospital bill when you have an attack.”

And Naegi can’t help but giggle, he already has the other man so well figured out in such short notice, is such an upbeat little optimist that he laughs away the prospect. Obvious to them both, Togami's biting sarcasm is quite blatant in terms of concern for Naegi's health- but neither of them care to point it out. It's nice to let it lie.

The smaller suddenly leans in to rest a bit of his weight against Togami’s side, presses shoulder-to-shoulder in relax, his hands rest alongside the other's on the railing- The slight lean into him is sweet, chaste, because he’s pulled away with a sigh- work on the horizon.

“I have to go now.”

Naegi hums, looks at him once, and steps back towards the front door, offers Togami clearance down dilapidated stairs and waves three fingers as he’s so keen to always do in farewell and hello- Togami steps with him, reaches a hand around the back of Naegi’s neck to hold still his brunet curls. And leans down to press a kiss gently to the top of head. Quickly he starts towards his car, passes the bottom step altogether because he’s sure to stumble again if he doesn’t. Behind him, Naegi sighs through his nose bittersweet, giddy, watches him go, and presses fingertips to the warm spot atop his head- allows himself a grin.

what a simple man, only a stranger coming to town- to interrupt his gas station occupation- and his life feels perfect. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank u guys for all the sweet comments!

The pages rip from his standing desk calendar in a steady one day after another stream of work, work, work. It’s been days, days of boring vacant living and he’s done nothing but sit at his desk and fill out some goddamn forms and sign contracts for nine hours a day. He’s so bored he could literally die and he supposes that’s just what he gets for moving to the countryside when he’s a cityboy from birth. This town is a dustbowl abandoned movie set compared to where he’d resided just a month ago. He can’t decide whether or not he yearns for the neon flashing city lights, the smell of asphalt in place of pasture.

He’s in a shitty mood. The last time he’d had any sort of release from his nine to six is that night he’d spent at Naegi’s and, unfortunately (to his disbelief, _unfortunately_ ) he’d not laid eyes on the five foot clerk since. Maybe that’s why he’s so pissed, he thinks, because Naegi usually always finds some sort of way to bother him. Some sort of completely unadulterated motive to show up. At work, at home, on the phone, and yet- nothing over these passed few days. He feels… neglected.

It’s revolting, he comes to the conclusion that it truly is so because there’s no way he’ll accept that he’s become so attention whorish that he’s bored because some kid isn’t popping up around every corner to humiliate him at work. The clock reminds him it’s five forty exactly and he’s red eyes drooping because he’s been frothing at his monitor for the last few hours over documents that need amendments. The halls are abandoned, schoolchildren gone and teachers run off hastily to avoid an ask of a later shift- as soon as time strikes four in the afternoon, it’s the same as though no soul had ever existed there in the first place.

Empty, empty, echoing halls, cool early evening light paints his face a fatigued hue. He thinks the janitor is likely still around, Kirigiri as well- He’s alone, sans.

He’s been bored, yes, and he’s also been tired. He hasn’t a full eight hours of rest for the last week and he doesn’t know why- never been an insomniac up till this point and without a smidge of doubt doesn’t plan on starting now. He needs his beauty sleep though he’s sure to be just as one hundred percent lemon cake gorgeous without it. Maybe it’s his apparent accidental love life that he definitely did not mean to initiate that has him so worn, but it’s too far gone now and he has to deal with it- finds he doesn’t mind that much anymore but why why why can’t he focus!?

He sighs, clicks to the next page.

He’s a damn recluse, feels like an insecure teenage girl because he hasn’t felt the need to interact with anyone besides his damn boss- and fuckin’ Naegi Makoto. He tries to remind himself, no need, no need to make connections within the town because he’s leaving anyways. But he’s not leaving, or at least he’s not sure he’s leaving- because he’d made some sort of devil’s pact with little sorcerer Naegi about considering to stay here in this backwash junction. Feels as though despite his usual nonchalant nature he just can’t break that promise.

He’s taken to sighing the negatives away with a crick to his neck as he keeps tip typing away on QWERTY keyboard, glazes over contract with lazy blues. Barely takes note when the door knocks because it’s probably Kirigiri come to bitch at him for staying late- six o five, it’s six o five- ‘just one more paper, please, let me finish my work.’ Tip tap tip tip, keyboard clicks deafen.

He doesn’t take any sort of surprise in tiny frame that pokes through the door in its sliver crack open, curious little head tilt lilts curls into eyes- he, the intruder, expects some sort of reaction, some sort of shock or delight at his appearance and yet there is nothing to show for his- boo! Surprise! visit because Togami doesn’t even look up. nearly-night light streams of yellow streetlamp pour in from the window behind the man at the desk- man at the door just watches him for a beat, blurts-

“Uh, hi!”

He coughs, whiplash writes itself into his quick neck snap up from papers to eyes meeting and he’s sure to consider suing Kirigiri for ever letting this boy near him- He thinks maybe he’ll write up a lawsuit- “I got whiplash in my fucking office because Kirigiri lets people wander the school after hours” He’s a mixed gasp and groan, squints eyes in pain’s revelation as he rubs his sore craning neck-

“What could you possibly want?”

His eyes are a hazey monochrome stare- blank and jaded because yes, really, what is it this time? He tries to forget he’s just been pouting about not seeing the boy but is far too tired to draw up any enthusiasm at all- in too shitty a mood to pretend he’s glad to be interrupted at six ten, so close to being done, one more page in the PDF. And a tad too surprised at the boy’s unexpected magicians plume poof into existence in front of him to have the time to conjure up anything more candid to say.

“Well, I just came to see you,” He smiles, cocks head in endearing tilt, “We haven’t had the chance in the past week.”

He scoffs, goes back to skimming because he can’t focus with the pest standing there like that- all interested and cutesy and ugh, he’s got to finish this paperwork. It’s a kind sentiment, and he guesses it’s what he wanted, after all, the world always gives him what he wants, but he’s a drama queen diva supreme and he’s going to bitch about it- ‘Sure I wanted to see him, but not right when my shift ends!’- ever the whiny teenager.

He hasn’t the time or energy to get invested right now- would bid the boy to take his leave if he wasn’t trying to ignore him. A promise of talk to you later to send him on his way, just let him mark the files complete, just put an end to the work, Friday glimmers promise.

“I just,” he clears his throat, begins to realize maybe Togami isn’t as happy to see him as he’d hoped, “Thought you’d want to talk… Since you like me…”

He trails off awkwardly, an obvious vie for attention- for some recognition that he’s literally right there and yes, of course, sure, he likes Naegi very much but not when he hasn’t eaten since the night before, hasn’t slept in a week, hasn’t had a smoke break in hours. He isn’t sure which of the latter issues twists his thoughts- that ‘im in a bad mood, maybe later,’ notion, into words of malice, but-

“Who said that?”

He almost smirks smug in clever jab, then realizes how badly he’s just _fucked up_ , and it falls back to blank- takes all he has not to express shock at his own words- since when had he lost his filter? He’d not even meant that hissing comment and yet he’d spoken it. He doesn’t reclaim it- can’t apologize because he never learnt how- the hardest word to say is sorry and he’d not even added it to his English vernacular when he took vocabulary in kindergarten.

He’s salt in the sugar dish.

The fall of the tiny smile that’d still lingered in Naegi despite his brusqueness is Togami’s near breaking point- thinks maybe he’ll crack- rise to his feet, contract forgotten, and scoop needy little Naegi into his arms and apologize like some sort of half-witted imbecile, like some sort of lavish romantic. He almost wishes to, regrets something he’s spoken for the first time in his life- but he holds to stand stoically his ground, doesn’t want to lose what little businessman’s dignity he’s left- what a _prick_.

“i- I thought _you_ did.”

And he remembers quite clearly, a vivid beautiful nightmare because it was simultaneously the most emotionally fulfilling and the most horrific downfall of his superiority complex in his entire life- telling Naegi he did indeed reciprocate the chili flake tension of queasy first crush ooze. And it pains him- the shine to Naegi’s hazel doe eyes, he backs toward the office door, still cracked open, grips the handle as if he’s to leave.

Naegi is fucking sensitive. Naegi is the sweetest man he’s ever met in his entire life, the first man he’s met who has no ill intentions, has no ulterior motives, has not a bad bone in his entire body. Stands innocently naïve and wise beyond his years in the same beat because he’s an enigma- he’s a challenge and Togami knows that what he needs- a partner who forces him to think- doesn’t leave him brain dead like the silicone tits that’d tried to woo him all his years in the city.

But he’s gone ahead and ruined it- had the blatant audacity to spit in the face of someone who’s yet to offer him anything but toothy grin- starry, freckled, saccharine, high-blood-sugar compassion.

The trembling lip on Naegi’s face is the last straw to his slamming his hands on his desk in aggressive rise to his feet, looms over his desk like a wrathful god. And the slim figure at the door flinches, squeezes eyes shut and rears head away to distance himself from what he feels will be an outburst of abuse. His knuckles grip white on the door frame- would well tears if he’d open those dazzling hazels.

Togami just sighs, anger without direction, without motive can barely stay afloat. his flexed fists fall to relax as he rests his weight unto them, stares at the fake laminate of his desktop with hard thought- isn’t sure what to do now that he’s gone ahead and speared this ‘relationship’ through the heart.

“What’s your problem, hm?” He doesn’t look up, doesn’t think he can knowing Naegi is likely in tears already, “Coming here and interrupting me?”

Naegi’s voice is a hushed stammer, shakes with swirl of shell-shocked sadness, topped with maraschino cherry of fright because he’s yet to see this side of Togami- thought him perfect as he’s prone to doing- ever the altruist- never sees the bad in anyone because damn, he’s just too kind- too loving.

“i- i just wanted to see you-“

When Togami looks up, half bangs rustling in his blurry vision, laying over his forehead to hide his eyes from view, he takes in Naegi’s red-faced tremors, biting shaking lip and wiping wet eyes with a sweatshirt sleeve that’s too long. He still rests his weight upon the desk, hasn’t the strength to stand on his own yet, he’s been sitting for so fucking long.

He… feels _bad_. He feels so bad he actually thinks he might vomit at the sight because the timid little thing never has done a deed to deserve such taciturnity and yet…

“have you- have you just been messing with me?” He sniffs, averts his gaze to the side of the room in an attempt to avoid eye contact, “I know it’s only been a few weeks but I thought you were serious about-“

“I am.” He nearly growls it, voice so low it’s barely his own, but it can’t be threatening, even if he means it to be so, his voice is hoarse with lethargy, can’t raise above a murmur. And he is, he really is, but he’s so tired he’s asleep on his feet, so sick of work that he managed to attack the most generous man who’d ever bothered to bask in his presence.

He makes his way around the desk in shuffling pace, oxfords drag the waxed tile floor but Naegi bids him not come any closer with a shrink back against the door.

“Then why are you?-“

“Because! That’s why!”

And he’s a goddamned third grader again, raising his voice, arguing over a seat at the lunch table, fussing over which crayons belong to him. Such a child in his absolutely mundane excuse, he’s supposed to be mature, supposed to be the pinnacle of success, peak of millionaire upfront upstanding man- yet he falls short, not for the first time. Though, for acknowledging his wrongs, it _is_ a first.  

His shouting drives the smaller to the edge of precarious suicide cliff into jagged sea water, buries his face in his sleeves and shoulders rack with muffling the sob leaving his whimpering lips. He can’t understand why, why the other has had such a malicious change of heart so suddenly- doesn’t want to believe that Togami is anything short of just as humanitarian as himself- but it’s the cold truth- reality is hard to swallow.

“fine then.” He backs out of the door finally, looks up with red rimmed gray greens and draws a blank, his grip leaving the door frame makes Togami’s stomach drop with realization, he’d pushed the boy too far, refused to apologize when he’d needed to, now he was leaving, “I don’t want to be around you anyways,”

And it’s a lie, it’s a lie if there ever was one but he doesn’t know what else to do because if he tries to stand his ground he’ll just get blistered some more- sees no point in fighting with Togami when he knows he can’t defend himself against such air of arrogance, when it hurts so much to argue with someone he cares about.

But he doesn’t understand, doesn’t get that Togami has his reasons, even if self-control should have prevented his snapping. bad days stack up and all he needs is for someone to listen to him, venting steam, let it off his Atlas Mountain shoulders- but contradicts that truth with avoidant refusal to open up his inner issues. He takes to chasing the boy down the hall as he dashes towards the exit- yells at him all the while, their voices reverberate through empty school halls.

“What’s _your_ problem!?” The smaller finally breaks, raises his voice as he skids to a stop and whips around to face Togami, “You act like you like me and then all- oh, all of a sudden- You don’t!”

He balls fists at his sides- and Togami stops.

It’s joyously new- Naegi Makoto stands up for himself quite well- intimidates despite his frame, despite his shaking voice-

And he knows the answer, of course, no one knows him better than himself. He’s been conditioned, like a Russian seventeenth century science experiment, Pavlov’s businessman, John B. Watson’s little Togami- to fear this- to fear relationships any deeper than business partner, to be afraid of friendship because it might spoil a good deal, to be afraid of love because it might distract him from his goal- or what really, he must admit, is his father’s goal for him.

There is no itinerary for a boyfriend- there is no schedule, no predictability. He’s no good for it, for anything other than laws and truths- set in stone and for sure. That’s why he’s a math-business major, because love isn’t charts and graphs and calculations- it’s emotions and he isn’t sure how to deal with them, how to act on them. He stands still- falls to a loss in slack posture as he stares down the other boy with blank eyes.

Realization spreads through Naegi’s features, as if he’s read Togami’s mind. Maybe he got that crystal ball from Kirigiri…

“You’re… You’re afraid.”

His voice falls to nearly whisper, a shaky hand reaches out as if it yearns to comfort but falls back to his side. He’s a breath out to steady himself, meets Togami’s baby blues with tender concern, anger and rejection melt away with understanding- and god, that’s all he’d needed- and finally, someone who can manage to read him without his having to lay it out like a fucking board game. He cannot, too ashamed- too arrogant to ever admit such things- always needed someone who could support without having to hear it, for he won’t say it, and finally, someone who can deal the cards without having to have them pre-shuffled.

And he would still contradict him despite it all being true- would protect his image and reputation to his death- but Naegi continues.

“You told me all that stuff the other night- about your childhood,” He sniffs, stands straighter as he speaks with more conviction, little rush of confidence holds chin high, “You’re afraid to care about anyone but yourself.”

Togami just shakes his head, lets it fall to look at the floor because he’s been defeated, been usurped from his throne of lies, great chair of godliness. Naegi clears the last of his tears with sleeve again,

“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” His voice is barely audible, “But if you want to call this, whatever it is, off, then I understand.”

The blond just scoffs, laughs breathily to himself because Naegi is so fucking selfless, willing to give up if it’s what would make Togami happy, doesn’t even consider how it would hurt himself. And its achy agony, he _hurt_ him, hurt that someone who’s so different from him, yet so impossibly important to his wellbeing, he feels sick without the other.

“No, no,” he refuses weakness as always, “I’m not afraid.”

He is.

Won’t admit it because he doesn’t even understand his own fear outside of what his father had taught him- or rather, what he’d refused to teach him. Won’t admit it because he doesn’t know what to do now that he’s caused such a ruckus. He learned nothing about sociality as a child outside of snake eyes limp handed businessman trickery, almost breaks a depressed chuckle at the thought of what disappointment he’d cause- caught feelings. for a man, no less.

Naegi sighs and it’s a long note of uncomfortable silence before he takes three steps forwards, peers up at downcast cerulean and reaches tender to touch jawline. He takes that declaration of ‘unafraid’ with a grain of salt, knows the other man well enough to see through the lie.

“Do you want to keep trying?”

It’s a strange request to anyone else, but Togami understands without having to even think about it, takes a deep, long breath, pushes it out through pursed lips, locks eyes with Naegi, nods with blues shimmering wide, desire seeps through every circulation of his pristine red blood cells. Its not sexual desire, not even romantic desire at this point- it’s the desire to be awarded a second chance when without a doubt he does not deserve one- its awe at such graciousness, such tenderness.

“Yes.”

And Naegi smiles.

It’s almost bittersweet, relief floods his hazels as he reaches another hand to tuck blond strand behind a red ear, “It’s okay, yknow, you don’t have to work so hard at this- I get that this is new for you. It is for both of us, really.”

Yes, yes he knows that he’s rushing things, not in the sense of their relationship, rather in the sense of how worried he is _about_ their relationship. He acts as though Naegi had proposed last week, like a damn fool, like he has some huge decision to ponder and fret over- but it’s new, it’s like he’d said, and he’s trying. He’s trying.

“C’mon, let me show you something,”

And he’s tugging Togami’s hand with gentle little fingers, towards the front door to the parking lot.

And he follows without a thought.  


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't get to proofread this one because im so pressed for time with college rn- Thank you all SM for comments!!!! I love yall

Naegi’s rusted red pickup is a… less than ideal ride.

It’s outer surface is rubbed free of most of its paint, the side doors of the truck are the only things that still attest to its former crimson glory at all. It’s nothing fancy, wasn’t even something that was supposed to be considered a nice car when it was first released by its maker. He’d been lead out of the school by his hand, tugged to the side door, and coaxed inside by puppy-pleading, glistening eyes.

The interior isn’t as worse for wear as the outside, a few stains on the fabric of the seat, a scratch in the sun-faded-graying dashboard. A knob seems to be loose for the AM radio, but Naegi seems to know its sweet spot, jams his thumb into it and pushes it just so- music starts up too quiet to really hear over the coughing splutter of a years and years old ancient engine under the paintless hood, which he can barely make out through fogged windshield.

He nearly contemplates arguing with Naegi, working something out to get out of wherever it is he’s trying to take him- he can’t stand the idea of leaving his one hundred and- no, priceless- perfect condition, kitty-kat-purring car in the parking lot of Hope’s Peak all alone, but he’s quick in assuring himself that there is no reason to fight whatever it is Naegi is trying to do.

He couldn’t get out of this now- won’t try to, really. He’d perfectly ruined the poor thing’s day after yelling at him for five minutes straight and making him cry, he at least owed it to the boy, to give him a few hours of undivided attention. He’d been off work anyways, only stayed late for lack of anything better to do, that workaholics bone will drive him to graying at thirty.

He’s curious anyways, quite piqued to see what exactly Naegi has in mind for the rest of the night- He’d told him that he wanted to keep trying, to make this work despite the kinks in the hose, and if this is how Naegi plans on initiating that ‘trying’- If wherever he’s being taken has something to do with strengthening the newborn foundation of their relationship- he’s interested. He wants this to work, his eyes gravitate to the driver, who’s humming quietly under rattle of old truck parts, focusing on night darkening road in front of him.

He sighs soft soft and quiet, warm breath fogs creaking window aside him, fingertips linger on window crank.

“You mind?”

He’s pulled a cigarette from its sleeping stack alongside it’s others, and raises prim eyebrows trimmed thin line, Naegi side glances him.

“Ah- no,”

He smiles ever so slightly, just a small glimmer before going back to focusing, nibbles lower lip with front teeth sharp. Togami rolls the window down in a few turns, flexes fingers around his lighter and drags the lit smoke to his lips, blows out the small crack he’d opened to try and preserve Naegi’s weak lungs. He can’t help it, he hadn’t had a break in hours. Maybe he’d be a little more considerate later, when his head finally relents its pounding hurting and his conscience feels showered clean of all the guilt from earlier. He shudders.

Its awkward silence, he breaks the ice with a low groan, huff pushed out of nostrils flared in exasperation. He cannot stand that Naegi has yet to drop the tiny kicked puppy façade. He’d apologized, Naegi accepted- they were fine. But why does he still feel so bad about it?

If some raw emotion- if some un-understandable, gripping, ever-so-thrilling courses of _feelings_ and a shitty day at work could have him so hot-headed irritated and dangerous to the gentle, plush god of all that is good- known as Naegi Makoto- what worth in love was he really? How could he remain so arrogant in his stability and his intelligence if he was so so easily swayed, so predictably unpredictable-like a tornado. Sure to cause damage, but no one really knows where or when, for sure.

“I,” He clears his throat in a fist, averts eyes to quickly passing landscape, pasture covered in pouring cool colored twilight, “I apologize for my behavior.”

It stings- it actually feels like lemon salt alcohol tingling in the wound of his pride when he admits it aloud- he’d admitted his absolute atrocity as soon as he’d spoken those first cruel words, but only to himself. He hadn’t bothered to give a true sorry yet, but maybe that’s what it takes to lift the breezeblocks from his shoulders- lift the weight of paining such a purity for such an inane reason as a bad day.

He wants to suggest a, “but…” because it’s in his nature to have an excuse, especially one touching upon his regality, his handsomeness, his intellect. ‘Sorry, but not really,’ it showcases his complete inability to ever make a mistake, or at least openly admit to one. certainly he’s a mess, but only once in the eyes of himself… and Naegi Makoto now too, he guesses.

But he just smiles, nods his head and glances side to admire angular features highlighted with fading light of the last streetlamp in town as they hit city limits- heading for true countryside now. Orange dances across high cheekbones, lips paint yellow then dark as the light finally shifts off of him, long eyelashes dust his skin as he shuts his eyes, waits a response.

“It’s okay, I know this is…” He hums in silent thought, taps fingers along the steering wheel, “New for you!”

Togami sighs again, how many times has he done that tonight? He picks idly at old upholstery betwixt his legs, bumpy old fabric peels back from yellow foam nearly squashed to flat from years of use and lack of replace. He tears a tiny bead of foam off gently, rolls it between finger and thumb in introspect- deep pondering.

“It’s good to try new things.”

Naegi is still smiling, makes a left turn, and Togami pays it no mind, is much more concerned with dissecting the words that’d just left his mouth. Naegi isn’t a man to like riddles, nor to tell them, he’s not the kind who flexes wit and cleverish mindset through wordplay and mind games. But he can’t help but feel there is more hidden in that statement than what would blindly meet the eye of someone who doesn’t bother to think critically- to look twice.

“I’m not…” He scoffs, shakes his head abruptly to emphasize, “I’m not just messing around.”

He mocks, bites his lip to keep himself from ripping into Naegi’s choice of words. Trying had been the word they’d used in the school, but now it seems like a foul, last ditch verb- lazy and unoriginal. He’d tried plenty of things in his day, all things had since been abandoned by him- because trying is a one hour free sneak peek that you completely forget about two hours later- trying is a sample size that goes unused. He isn’t trying, he’s absolutely serious- in the most sickeningly romantic of ways.

He bounces suddenly, grips the side door handle as Naegi turns again. Dirt and gravel kick up and ricocheting underneath the car- bangs and clinking alert him in a way that’d have him livid if this were his own car. Naegi’s grown used to it in years long lived here, turns to Togami with head tilted in questioning.

“What do you mean?”

He’s disfigured in his seat again, head nearly hits the plastic molding of the roof in his ungraceful bump up over a pothole in the road. Naegi is a saint, doesn’t once even crack at grin at his skittish attitude- so unsure of the feeling of dirt road gravel underneath barely treaded truck tires.

“I’m not just..” He begins, falls off into uncertainty, “I’m not just ‘trying’ this. I’ve never met anyone wh-“

He coughs again, just to cut himself off. His involuntary mind rescues him, ever the hero for his dignity, from saying something so nastily sappy he’d never be able to forgive himself for it. He’s never met anyone so irritatingly endearing, someone who makes his heart beat in awkward cadence, can’t find the tune, doesn’t know where to come in, and he’s never met a one who actually seems to care, who grapples for his undivided attention for reasons other than sex or money.  Naegi is, as he always seems to be, that beautiful oddball exception.

“I’ve never met anyone who keeps me… interested.”

It’s trashy as soon as it falls from his lips. Makes him play the city boy whore who gets rid of boring lovers like one-use paper plates after a night of full meal- five course with the triple fudge vanilla ice cream lava cake- the usual, sir.

“So I’m not just trying.” He scoffs again, flicks the ball of foam to his feet, nudges a broken cd case and an empty (probably) can of coca cola with the toe of his oxfords. He’s not seen as the whore, not even as the fussy little rich boy, pouting and kicking his feet because things haven’t worked out as perfectly as he’d so pleased. Naegi sees him as he is- isn’t one to like riddles, like he’d said, and facades are to him, still a riddle. He doesn’t care about the connotations of the words leaving Togami’s lips, understands their intentions whether they’re trashy, awkward, or stumbling first timer, and Naegi’s his guide in the love life- hand takes his in gentle squeeze across the cab.

Naegi grins, lets his head tilt as he listens, pets his thumb against the other’s knuckle, he finally chuckles a hushed bout, as if he’d risen from deep thought,

“I’m not messing around either,”

He sniffles a bit, uses the hand on the steering wheel to come off to scrub at his nose, Togami nearly scolds him for that, doesn’t appreciate how the truck swerves a narrow second. Naegi continues, still grinning, still tilting his head, still petting.

 “I like you… a lot- you were,” He sighs through pursed lips as he searches for the right word, “A breath of fresh air, yknow? I’d never seen anyone like you before.”

Togami’s chest swells with pride. Of course Naegi’d never seen anyone quite like him before. He was an esteemed businessman, born into richness with genes on his side. He’s nothing short of a cover model and his bank account backs that up just fine. Living in this town, the poor boy probably never saw anything- anyone- really worth looking at. Still, even those who lived aside Togami in the city’s night-crawler limelight had drooled over him- But there’s something special about the fact that it’s him. The notion that it’s Naegi who’s been so intrigued by his existence, and it makes his chest swell, yes, but it makes his heart burn, cheeks hot. It’s those silly nineties tv commercials- Never Before Seen! Togami Byakuya actually gives a damn about someone!

He’s snapped out of his revelry when he notices they’re actually no longer driving on the road- there are literal tall stalks of wheat or barley or whateverthefuck they grow out here in hillbilly hell brushing alongside the door of the car, disappearing underneath the hood as it rolls over them.  And oh god, he’s panicking. It’s one of those delirious horror movies where the absolutely idiotic protagonist has to flee from his pursuers in a cornfield- but this isn’t corn and no, no he’s far too smart to be killed by a pack of farmers, right? Still his heart speeds up and face pales- he swallows hard and grips the door handle so tight his knuckles’ flesh whitens.

But he’s with Naegi, and the confused boy cocks his head at the dread pooling in all of Togami’s movements- in the fear alongside those tightening fingers as he draws his hand away to rip at the seat nervously and-

“Hey, it’s okay,” He shakes his head sheepishly, grimaces, “I forgot you’re not used to this stuff.”

He pushes foot to the brake and it lurches forward with the effort of stop- inertia is the enemy of a hundred year old truck. Togami loosens his grip and posture- coughs into his shoulder and narrows his eyes- he feels ashamed that he’d gotten so fearful- but there’s nothing more true than Naegi’s words- he’s far from used to driving in the goddamn grass and he’s far from ever really wanting to be used to it- he thought this was supposed to be some sort of impromptu date, not a tour of the local wheat fields.

He’s embarrassed- and usually, he’d shield that with anger- he’d accuse Naegi of doing something so crazy but-

“Komaru and I always pull up here and hang out, it’s really…” He places a finger to his bottom lip, “Tranquil?”

The reassurance in those words causes him relax, he rolls his shoulders and sighs, anger forgotten. Naegi hadn’t done it to scare him- and he hadn’t teased him about it, so he guesses he can let it slide. The other has already opened his door, cool night air floods the cab as Naegi rises up and leaves the driver’s seat, slams his door back shut. Togami hurries to follow suit, doesn’t fancy being alone at the moment because yea, yea, whatever, he’ll admit it, it’s a bit frightening out here when you’re not one of the good ol’ natives who knows everyone and every stalk of wheat in town.

He pushes the door to open, strands of grass flush underneath the push of the door and then pop back up as it moves past them. They stand upright to invade his space as he stands- and it’s humiliating to a pain that he’s afraid to step in the grass because it’s thigh high and there could be bugs or snakes or-

He does what he would call a fast-walk, but to anyone aside from him it’s more like sprinting- arrives at the back of the truck safely, to stand aside Naegi as he unlocks the tailgate and lies it flat. Lifts his feet up all antsy because as much as he doesn’t want to dirty his pure black slacks sitting in the flatbed of a dirty dusty truck, he’d much rather be up there than down here. 

The truck is empty sans said dirt and dust, nothing litters the floor like he would’ve expected, and Naegi hikes himself up to sit, Togami follows suit.

“Here, this is kind of what I wanted to show you today,”

The boy is suddenly scrounging through his jean’s pockets, feeling around for whatever it is- and he watches on silently as he waits for the grand production.

“I just thought you’d, “ He hmm’s in effort, wiggles something from his left pocket, denim turns inside out with the tug, leaves pocket fabric exposed, “Like to see this.”

It’s a square of paper, and he’s about to roll his eyes before it’s turned over- reveals it’s true identity as a photograph- and no way, no how, he cannot believe his baby powder blue eyes there’s just no. way.

Naegi must truly be a god, a wizard, something otherworldly and though Togami doesn’t believe in magic, he’s not sure how else to describe it.

It’s a picture, yes, of his father.

He’s rude in his ripping of it from the presenters hand, holds it close to glasses lens to thoroughly inspect. It really is his father, cold dark eyes and long looming form, this seems to be clipped from a tabloid, and it would make perfect sense. His father littered just as many magazines as he did, the Togami Corporation had its fair share of general advertisement- and what would be wrong with plastering their faces everywhere? The world could use a little more handsome- but no that’s not the point!

The woman aside his photographed father is not his mother, he crinkles the photo a bit, tender with its crusty edges, it’s old with years, his conception likely not even thought of at the time of its taking.  She’s adorned like all his mistresses had been- long black sleeveless dress with pearls and feathered hat- he looks up at Naegi- narrows eyes and points to him accusatory.

“Where did you find this?”

Stupid question, sure, a magazine, a tabloid, the obvious answer, but why, exactly, had he saved it? The picture is from before both of their births, so how could he have known-?

“My mom,” He runs fingers through push back of unruly locks, “Believe it or not, she collects clippings from magazines- stuff she likes.”

He meets Togami’s blues with gentle return of stare. His curiosity does nothing but intensify, that doesn’t explain how they’d known it was his father.

“She wanted that dress.” He smiles bittersweet and shakes his head, curls fall back over his forehead.

He’s about to open his mouth to demand more explanation- there’s something more to this than hobbies and dresses, but Naegi begins before he can interrupt.

“She heard about you because Komaru,” He blows air out of his mouth and rolls huge hazels in exasperation, scoffs, “Friggin’ Komaru- she told my mom about you.”

Togami widens his eyes, taken aback at the statement. He’d gone the extra flamboyant mile and snobbily exclaimed that he and Naegi were boyfriends after spending the night sleeping together- how had his mother reacted to hearing that her son had another man in his bed whilst her fifteen year old girl was home? He begins to argue, speaks up with concern because there must be a problem- there must’ve been an argument about it- he can’t imagine any parent being okay with that.

“She doesn’t really mind- she was kind of pissed that I didn’t ask first. But she recognized your last name and gave me this to give you!”

He smiles sucrose sweet, it drips from every freckled pore, and he rests his hands on his lap and cocks his head, waits for a response. But he doesn’t offer one, just stares down at the photo of his ever serious father and a woman he doesn’t know. He has… mixed feelings about this. It’s not as though he likes his father much, but there’s something about seeing the old man as what was likely the age Togami is now…

“Hey, I,” Naegi coughs, “You mentioned that your father didn’t treat you well… and I don’t want to overstep my boundaries… but…”

He sighs, clears his throat and leans back to rest on his palms flat to the truck. Togami listens, but tears his eyes away to stare up into the sky- in the distance is the road they’d driven off of- lined with pines, and every other direction is just fields- the sky is seven oclock dusk- purple and pink and blue and it’s chilly with late year nip in the air- it’s perfect- something he never thought he’d say-

“I think he’s the reason you’re so unsure of all- all this.”

He waves his hands around goofily, gestures indignantly because there’s really no other way to describe what’s be going on between them as of late-

“Am I wrong?”

Naegi scoots closer, wraps tiny hands around larger, colder ones, and closes Togami’s fist around the picture, leans his head in to look closely into muddled blues- hazed with thought. He turns his full attention to the brunet, grits his teeth because there’s no way he’d say yes ever if he was- because those gorgeous eyes are melting him as they stare so concerned and he’s decadent like late night snack snuck under cover of moonlight aid.

Togami doesn’t answer, but Naegi can read the ‘no’ in averted eyes, a swallow with a bob of worried adams apple.

“Keep it.”

Naegi withdraws his hands, smile unwavering, and goes back to his leaning in the flatbed. Togami unfurls his knuckles- stares down at photo blankly for a fracture of a second- he thinks about Naegi, about everything he is- and he thinks about Kirigiri, and about the stupid shack he’s living in right now and the smell of pasture and the convenience store’s neon lights every time he stopped to see Naegi and-

He tears the photo right down the middle, glares at the two pieces before shredding them again between manicured nails furiously until the shreds flutter to the grass below like snowflakes. He drops his head into his hands, groans, and Naegi is back aside him, rubs his shoulder in comforting. Feeling is hard, he’d say, and it takes a lot out of him. He shivers a bit chilled from weather and deep down stomach misery and he’s hid it for so long it feels good to let it all out- even if it’s a bit embarrassing.

Naegi is hushing him, stroking his shoulder blades gentle and resting his forehead to his ear. And they stay like that for a bit, and he takes security in it all.

“Everything is gonna be okay.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys- Anatomy and Physi is kicking my ass- it's paying off tho, I have a 99%. I'll be quicker to try and get at least two more before spring break!

Naegi rolls his shoulders in a shrug out of his olive green jumper, flares it out with a clumsy lift into the air to successfully draw it out across the furthest end of the flatbed of the old truck. He shuffles to settle atop it, crosses his legs and leans his back to the cab. He pats the fabric aside him idly, motions for Togami to crawl through dirt and dust across truck’s gritty surface, in his work pants, to sit with him. And ever the star-struck curious cat, he obeys.

Oh well, he’d rather sit in buildup of grime and sediment, collected likely over a few millennia, from old country roads traversing, than in the grass with the snakes and the bugs. Naegi’s tangled strands bundle up at the peachy keen baby hair at the nape of his neck where his head presses to the rear window, and he watches Togami curiously as he struggles to get comfortable atop cool metal covered by none but a hoodie. Damn, he’s sitting on a zipper.  

Everything had been gooey smooth, sucrose glaze, warm and gentle, since his momentary outburst- not a single word, nary a breath, had passed, aside from Naegi’s comforting declaration, and yet it’s as far from awkward as they’ve been yet. They rest side by side, and a hand takes to his chilly and chapped, squeezes, but Naegi doesn’t act as though he feels cold. It’s kindergarten precarious for a moment, and then he squeezes in respond small digits in his palm, intertwines their fingers easy and slow like jigsaw puzzle pieces, early morning Sudoku with black coffee to warm up for the day, simply stirring.

The silence persists, but Naegi’s a downy sigh to break it, lilted voice carries night whispers along with it and the sun sets far in the distance- no longer does the sky bleed twilight, instead settles with late night to deep dark hues of bedtime drizzle overhead. It’s all so regal, laying eternities long past the gently swaying fields of grass.

“You drive me crazy.”

He murmurs finally, pulls his bottom lip into his mouth to wet it with a flick of his tongue in nervousness. The profile of his face seems glowing, ghostly, even, amongst the trench blues and midnight blacks behind him- He’s a negative silhouette, a bioluminescent angel against contrasting canvas, and oh, how beautiful it all is. Naegi is front teeth just a minuscule smidge too far apart, peppered cheeks and long lashes casting shadows over, and he turns to make eye contact, to judge Togami’s response to the statement. His lips peak up in gentle stifled chuckle.

“…When I first saw you- I didn’t even know what to think... You were so…” He beams larger, tilts his forehead towards Togami’s playfully, “New.”

He giggles like a child, sheepishly guides eyes away to admire the landscape around them in an attempt to distract- far too embarrassed to admit that he finds Togami the most admirable of it all.

“I saw you again because of Kiri… I was like, ‘Whoa! It’s you!’”

 His recount of all of their happenstance meetings is endearingly childish, oddly sweet and enthusiastic despite the constant embarrassment that’d covered every rendezvous. Togami supposes that’d only left a mark on his own personal reputation- something Naegi cares nothing about. He doesn’t mind reputation or public image- he’s just Naegi Makoto, and right now, he’s just Togami Byakuya. He’s just a six foot devilishly stunning CEO working as some woman’s underling. And yet, it’s strangely comforting to relax in being ‘just’ despite his entire life teaching him to be ashamed of such a thought.

“Y’know that stuff doesn’t happen by accident, so I just had to ask you out,” Naegi smiles mischievously, “It’s like… fate!”

He wiggles his fingers in a mock of a mystic and presses a digit to sink into the flesh of Togami’s angular cheek, smiles so wide his eyes have to squint closed into slits. He bursts into another fit of joyous giggles- such a baby, Togami thinks, such a toddler like disposition- and still he’s never cared about anyone more. And he nearly reciprocates, flusters a bit at how soft he is- delicate powder pink satin pajamas and fresh vanilla all ground into warm pastries on Sunday morning- and clears his throat embarrassed. He sobers up from watching the gooey ooze of elated that is Naegi, sighs to recount his own tale.

“When I saw you, I hated you.”

Naegi’s smile drops stunned, as expected, and he swallows hard. Seems a bit taken aback, and rightly so, they’d just come off an argument, but Togami isn’t finished yet.

“I’d never had anyone fishnet my attention so seamlessly- you weren’t even trying to interest me and yet… I wanted to know you.”

He scoffs deep in his throat, shakes his head hard to clear the moths from his ears and pretends to be focusing again on the landscape surrounding.

“It made me feel like shit.”

Naegi, ever chipper, brushes it off as per usual. It’s no insult, it usually never is. Togami is bold and blunt and Naegi is the first man to ever truly grasp that- to ever truly care enough to make the effort- no matter how harsh his words are, he’s not constantly trying to convey negativity- finally, someone gets it. Gets _him_.

The other just laughs, cocks his head so brown tousles over the crown of his head and falls to its opposite side. He reaches for Togami’s larger hand with both of his own once again, leans in close and can barely contain that sudden burst of ecstatic bliss.

“I’m glad.”

He just cannot help but return the grin, shoves Naegi away with his free hand in a playful manner, so the other spills back against the dirty cab. They’re both grinning like schoolgirls, barely containing soft laughter as they revel in it all- they’re here, brought together by unbecoming circumstances and unlikely romance and it’s storybook perfect.

It’s another long beat of comfy silence, they lean together and breath fresh rural and hands touching lovingly.

“Are you staying? I know that’s a tough question but-“

“Considering it.”

He needn’t explain. Yes, the salary is sizable, the scenery does perhaps grow on you after spending childhood in concrete jungle, and the fresh air brings him more relax than the cigarettes and espresso at four AM in the corner coffee jig ever did. It’s something new, as Naegi would put it, and sure, the town is dead, the house is a damn cabin shack, but it all adds up just perfectly imperfectly so that he can’t find something worth complaining about- not when the sweetest rotten toothed thing is sitting right next to him stroking the palm of his hand, gazing into his eyes.

“I’m Togami Byakuya. I can have the best of both worlds.”

And he’s not wrong, he can certainly manage both homes without a second thought, and double the work is double the occupancy which he so loves- work is in his blood. Naegi wriggles all giddily, squeezes his index finger as that’s all he’s still got a grip on, and stares up into an endless world of stars. He hadn’t bothered to look up, but he’s now rendered nearly breathless. The sky full of stars twinkles like he’d only seen in paintings and photographs- the lack of light pollution opens the door to something so beautiful and never before seen- at least for him.

“Hey,” They don’t look at one another as Naegi calls him, too fixated on the heavens above, “Did you chew that gum?”

Togami lowers chin to narrow eyes at him, scoffs and rolls blues in exasperation. He’d tried to be inadvertent, sheepishly fishing for flirtation with the stars, had hoped Naegi would complement him and paint his ego pretty colors beneath night sky, but he asks him about gum… damn it.

“Yes. Why?”

Naegi nods, looks into his eyes and away from the stars.

“I’ll get you some more then.”

He ‘hmms’ in acknowledgment, reminded of the gas station despite being surrounded by nothing but nothing, and cringes at the memory of the red-headed fireball he’d run into one of the few times he’d gone expecting and hoping for Naegi.

“That other clerk- obnoxious red hair, piercings?”

Naegi doesn’t seem pleased at the mention either, makes a quick face before falling flat

“Yea that’s Leon… He’s a cool guy.”

Togami clicks his tongue in disapproval, sits up straight against the cab and stretches his long legs out in front of him. His legs protest to the sudden extension, crick and seize for a hot moment before relaxing. That’s what happens with an office job, he’s left to suppose.

“He’s barely got an IQ of seventy.”

Naegi tries to hide his amusement behind hand but cannot, shifts to sit aside Togami closer with his legs tucked underneath himself.

“Did he, uh… Mention that I mentioned you?”

“Oh yes, quite blatantly.”

Naegi groans, pulls on his bangs with opposite digits in humiliation and anxiousness- he blows on the hairs to coax them away from his face, rolls his eyes as he mutters something denouncing the redhead under his breath. He still keeps his pep, seems thoroughly unfazed otherwise, as he snuggles aside Togami by nudging his weight underneath the other boy’s arm- his arm splays across the top of Naegi’s petite shoulder blades. He rests his weight to Togami- and it stirs warmth in his chest to hold the boy close, cups his shoulder and gently rests his chin to Naegi’s skull top.

“I always wanted something like this,” He fiddles with Togami’s fingers, flexes them and imposes them with his own curious touches, “Too bad my old high school class is almost totally moved away… they said I’d never date anyone out of my league.”

Togami snorts, rears his head up away from Naegi in disbelief, “Feelings don’t play by class, obviously.”

The dig goes unoffending, and wasn’t really meant to be because Togami has no filter and no concern for his words usually, but still, all the same, has no desire to hurt Naegi’s feelings. The boy is staring at him absentmindedly, nods slowly along his words and just stares with entranced hazels. He’s lost in dreams, it would seem, listless and dopey, and before Togami can become curious enough to ask what his issue is, a hand runs up the length of his jacketed arm slow slow slow drag of heat outside of sleeve, it lingers on the top of his shoulder, and he breathes in through clamped teeth.

Naegi is sitting upright on his knees now, slightly bent to sit looming over Togami who had since sunken down against the cab in relax, they linger so close its burning bronze hot and he’s feeling the world stop around him, he’s no idea what to do because Naegi’s got a hand pressed to his chest, eyes half-lidded and teeth gnawing at his lower lip in quiet pleading. Oh my god, he wants me to kiss him, and everything he’s ever come to know- his work, his father, the side of him that is so afraid- it tells him to push Naegi away and make a break for it, but no no, they’d come here to be together- to make something out of this and-

He’s doing it, lips meet in cold touch and at first it’s no different from hand holding- kindergarten and unsure, but Naegi shifts his head, presses himself forward and allows the deepening of it. It’s soft and warm and wet- it’s all so foreign and he’s kissing back in sync as if they’d done this a hundred times. Fireworks exploding and gas station neon lights and he’s gripping Naegi’s feeble jaw and rising up to assume dominance, nips gently at the boy’s lower lip to pull a soft gasp of surprise.

Naegi cups his cheeks warmly, knocks their foreheads together and hums. He pulls away for breath, groans gently,

“Oh my god-“ He splutters teenage revelry- breaks into a huge grin- but Togami is no teenager, they’re in their twenties- and he plans on kissing like it. He moves back in, dives in with a yank of that chin and his free hand wraps around the back of Naegi’s head to hold him closer and they kiss, kiss, kiss, only separate for quick breaths and Naegi is trembling as they meld in gooey thick and warm. The smaller has the audacity to whimper soft, “mmm- ah!” as they separate one final time.

“That was-“

“Hush.”

Togami’s voice is deep syrupy honey spilling thick strands as he watches every nervous little ticking motion in Naegi’s posture as he flutteringly wriggles about.

“You’ll spoil the moment.”

Naegi rolls his eyes playfully and grins, pounces back over to peck chin, jawline, cheek, as if he’s testing the newfound waters he’s just being allowed to explore. He slings a leg over Togami’s hip, straddles him, and before the man underneath can protest, no no, not ready for that! It becomes apparent he has no ill intention, doesn’t poise to grind or touch, just sits atop him like a kitten perched. And he leans close with hands braced to lean, clothed chest,

“You’re less afraid now. See, I told you!”

“I wasn’t ever afraid.”

He scoffs, already red cheeks flare with shame to cover the hotness of first kiss with the boy of his dreams.

“Mmhmm…” he drawls sarcastically, bats eyelashes and ever the gentleman, must obtain consent, “Can I have another kiss?”

And Togami leans in to grant it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another one with no proofread (killme) - i hope you're all having wonderful days!

Sore aches and painful tremors creep from jointed ankles to lanky neck, and Togami is sleeping beauty, blearily parts his desert-dry eyelids to attempt to paint a more firm picture of his surroundings. He feels like an arthritic rolled over in the grave, struggles to even sit upright, and yet, cannot. He’s not even sure of where he is, exactly, at least not yet. He groans with the minimal effort it takes to free one arm from its unknown restraint, glides up to have fingers scrape at baby blues in desperate attempt to window-wipe the fogginess of sleep from his boggled brain- he’s still lying in the back of Naegi’s truck. What the hell?

He does recall, despite the bride’s veil of light confusion that litters his memory, the how and the why and the when of it all. His mind dances clear in its sluggish depths- again picks at corneas with filed fine fingernails to try and rid himself of the haze. He doesn’t play the fool, doesn’t try to pretend that he can’t remember all that had unfolded over last night’s twilight hours- yawns and fights white weight on his chest to pull his upper body to sit erect.

 Ah, that weight. Naegi is strewn about him, head has rolled to rest against the precarious edge of his abdomen, forehead tucked tight to his side, and his legs lie splay across the truck bed to their rights, all bent at the knee like a discarded doll.

They’d fallen asleep out here, caught up in the instinctual human need for rest after emotions driven wild all in the span of a few hours- It had gotten so dark he could barely make out the swaying grass aside them, and the night calls all her children the same- and they’d come crawling to her outstretched arms to meet sleep at about midnight. Hell, he hadn’t even noticed he _was falling_ asleep- can remember their quiet post-first-kiss chatter and hands intertwined and stroking and… cuddling. Gosh- he’s absolutely gone soft.

But it seems as though their conversation had lulled and they’d both conked out in the back of the truck, which is fine for him, sans the dull sore throb to his joints and the dragging sensation of having slept in such an awkward position, upon cold metal, no less. It’s a bit dangerous as well- surprise floods him that nothing had transpired, but must remind himself that they’re in the middle of complete nowhere- there likely hadn’t even been a car drive passed- let alone a criminal or a thief. And it’s Sunday, he believes- the resting day.

Naegi spontaneously stirs atop him, groans quiet hushed murmur and shudders chilled to his bones- his gray t-shirt is skewed upwards of his stomach to reveal the perilous patch of skin above the belt of his jeans. And Togami reaches out to pet gently, curious, strokes chilled thumb over the tiny bump of protruding tailbone- startles the barely awake boy to a loud gasp and a sit upright so fast he tumbles from Togami’s lap to the flatbed. He shakes his head to compose himself, tousles ‘bedhead’ brunet locks before he relaxes upon his ankles to blink slowly at his whereabouts- confusion paints his pretty face.

“We fell asleep out here,” Togami’s tone is plain, gray black white monotonous, not entirely sure how to feel about it, really, but Naegi just grins and nods.

“Well, good morning, then!”

He rolls his blues skyward as he edges back to the end of the tailgate to hop back down into what he is certainly sure is snake ridden stalks of wheat- glances pointedly at Naegi to hurry, hurry, back into the truck- still, the boy just takes his sweet early morning citrus-time in shrugging his hoodie back on and stretching short arms up towards the pale blue of morning sky to rid the crick in his neck- a few rolling clouds threaten light rain- nothing more, nothing less.

They round the edge of the truck simultaneously, brushing through thigh-high stalks, and Naegi gets the engine choking to life in a few short silent moments- is set in reverse to rejoin the dirt road they’d come here on. They’re silent on the ride back to town- comfortable quiet served with early morning doziness and lingering high of a first night- actually, he recalls, second night- spent with a lover. He could use a coffee and a quick smoke- pats his pockets in worry that they’d somehow fallen astray- but reassured in the presence of tiny cardboard box still lingering in his pants.

“I have to get a few things from the corner store, okay?”

Naegi blinks at the other, shoots a small grin as he shifts stick to park in the lot of the general store across from Hope’s Peak. Togami had only been in here a very limited number of times for how long he’d been to stay- it’s pleasant, as pleasant as a general store can be.

They enter hand in hand, Togami feels no issue with it. It’s white stucco brick walls with gray-streaked tiling beneath their shoes, squeaks whenever Naegi stalls to look at something. There are about twelve aisles, lined with colorful assortments of packaged goods, a little cash register counter to their left- freezers with glass doors line the back of the store- filled with sodas and beer. Yep, just as cornerish as a corner store should be.

Naegi chats aimlessly as he wanders the aisles- Togami is barely listening- focuses on warmth and squirming of the other’s digits in his own and nods along to each syllable pouring from the other’s lips as he relays some superfluous story Togami is sure he’s heard before. He grabs things here and there- a bag of chips, a can of soup, a box of tissues, and tosses it into the basket Togami carries for him with his free hand- He’s a shopping cart now! What an occupation!

Though, he can’t complain. It’s about eight thirty in the a.m. and there’s no one else whose company he’d rather keep. He doesn’t mind, really, not even when Naegi thrusts a half gallon of milk towards him and exclaims something about Komaru’s princess dream diary he’d stolen away with and read when they were little kids. They’re a slow jaunt to the register, strolling boring snack food aisles like an old married couple and lingering close. Togami can’t keep the groans- whines about his coffee and his cigarettes and Naegi coos that there’ll be time for that in a moment, stops at the counter and takes the basket to place it atop and smiles toothily at the cashier.

The man behind the counter favors Naegi, in a strange way- but brown hair doesn’t fall so angelic around freckled face- instead spikes violently at its edges and the face favors it the same- sharp and pointed. Tired greens match the can of coke life clutched in right hand- he swigs from it and observes them with unfeeling stare- raises an unkempt eyebrow and begins scanning items in motions so natural he must be a veteran employee.

“Hey, Naegi.”

He greets, eyes his coke like he’d much rather be drowning himself in it than scanning a carton of milk and a bar of soap-

“Who’s this?”

He points chin process at Togami in a gesture he finds a bit rude, but says nothing- goes to cross arms in silent standoff, but stops short when he recalls his connection at Naegi’s hand, and interrupts his pull away.

“Hi, Hinata! This is Togami.”

Their conjoined fingers draw suspicion, ‘Hinata’ is a soft, intrigued ‘hmm’ and a slow nod as he begins to finish the order- those behind them in line suddenly seem to be fixated on them, their posture of duality- should be expected in small-town rural, he supposes, but it still angers him. Naegi seems a bit hesitant now, afraid of judgment, swallows slow and pretends he doesn’t notice, but his loosening grip drives Togami to spitefully grip tighter- no way is he letting some know-nothing commoners dissuade him from doing exactly what he wants.

The register-keeper seems put off, but makes no further comment- he pushes bagged items towards the pair in exchange for the pocket cash Naegi had dug out of his jeans- but stops short in confused glance at the bills in his hand, jingles the few coins and sighs as he clenches fist around it to a set down on the counter- shakes his head in obvious disappointment.

“You’re short, Naegi.”

Togami nearly nearly considers it a blow to the other boy’s stature, realizes quickly that it is not about height, but rather, the amount of money sitting in his long fingers. He would rather it be a teasing insult- the embarrassment that comes to follow from being unable to pay is surely worse than being called small.

Suddenly, the boy wrenches his hand from Togami’s to step closer to the counter in a near lean over it- his cheeks flare with shame and he coughs into his shoulder-

“Can’t you just… yknow, put it on my tab?”

He whispers quietly, doesn’t dare glance at rich man extraordinaire Togami Byakuya who could probably possibly buy the entire store a hundred times over. (wouldn’t thought, he thinks, because this dive probably barely makes enough to keep ends meetings- not worth the investment.) He shifts nervously, and Hinata rolls his eyes- sips slowly at his drink and shakes his head.

“You’ve put your last four trips on the tab.”

He’s skittering now, shifting feet and ever conscious of the growing line behind them, Togami isn’t quite sure what to think of what’s unfolding before him- Obviously, Naegi isn’t that well off, but he didn’t grasp yet, how bad it must be- a tab at the _convenience store?_ He sighs and rolls blues dramatically, digs in his pocket for his wallet- Naegi doesn’t know what’s happening before it’s too late. He hands shiny red credit card with 6000 dollar balance across the countertop and straight into Hinata’s waiting hand.

“Pay the tab as well.”

It’s a clear command- and Naegi’s face falls flat. There’s no way the grand total is even reaching two hundred dollars- not even on its tippy toes- not in this backwash dollar store. But whatever it is, its complete and utter couch change to the Togami Byakuya. The boy still seems flustered beyond belief, bright pink and stuttering- interrupted by the passing of credit card right back before his nose tip and the pushing of bags into his hands. He stumbles behind Togami back towards the car- shell-shocked and submerged beneath the hoover dam explosion of generosity that he knew existed within the other man’s heart- somewhere deep down. Really deep. Like Marianas Trench.

As soon as they’re resituated in the truck, Naegi settles the bags in the back seat and-!

Togami jumps- startled by the sudden fling of tiny arms around his neck to pull him across the cab to hug him close- blond hair mingles with brunet in their brush of foreheads as Naegi bursts into gentle laughter- He’s emotional, sniffles and shakes his head in bewilderment.

“You didn’t have to do that,” He murmurs, pulls away to jam key into ignition, “You’re just… you’re precious.”

The adoring little comment goes overlooked, Togami has proved to be far from such, he scoffs low in return. He just couldn’t stand there and let the boy embarrass himself any longer, and what was he supposed to do? He’s filthy rich, and Naegi knows it. But that’s his business man’s copout- Had it been anyone else struggling at the register, he would’ve rolled his eyes and spat at them- never would’ve offered help despite his eight-digit balance. It’s because it’s _him_.

That’s all there is to it.

* * *

 

Naegi had pulled his truck into Hope’s Peak parking lot and allowed Togami to retrieve his car- pleased to find it still in its hundred thousand grand condition despite a night of left alone in the great unknown of the nightlife of nowheresville. Ah, thank god.

And thus, he’d driven home alone and immediately gone to doze on the couch, still resides there, actually, a lit cigarette hangs out of his mouth as he lazily scrolls through weather channels and news shows, boring, boring, stupid, boring- Oh! What’s the point of paying for cable at all!

He’s still sore, sore-er, sore-est, tired muscles and achy joints relax and crick in his sink deep down onto auburn couch cushions plush- eyes bare of glasses frames, which instead find home on the coffee table in front of him. A glass of take it easy thick sweet whiskey sits aside them- but he’s yet to touch it, takes long slow drag and opts to shut the TV off entirely, groans aloud in boredom.

He’s alert with a soft bang, peaks head up from the couch and narrows his eyes in the direction of the impromptu foyer all these country homes seem to be equipped with- again, rap rap, and he knows now that it’s the door- a lazy stretch to his feet because there’s only a small handful of people who’d bother him on his day off. He strolls to the door with heavy bare feet on cool floor- takes one last long suck off of cigarette before smashing it in the ashtray upon the tiny key table next to the door.

“Hello-?”

He fails to stop the unbridled noise of shock that passes his lips rounded in jaw agape surprise- eyes stretch wide open to nearly bug out of their orbits because he’s not sure he’s even been so grounded in all his life. His grip on the door tightens before it falls to his side, limp in disbelief, mouth still hanging, eyes still stretching.

Naegi lingers in the door- but all the same it is not the chipper bright white smile he’s come to know-  No, he appears a pampered Pomeranian barely escaped a Mexican dogfight with the nastiest rabid dogs on this hemisphere- He’s got an arm draped across his chest to hold its opposite shoulder as if he’s having to hold himself together by a thread- His left eye is colorful violet and crimson splatter, swollen to complete blinded close with blood dripping from both corners. His lip is broken, busted straight down the middle and crusted red and maroon with old blood- he’s covered, actually. Blood streams and flows down from his hairline- pools at his eyes and mouth, his nose misaligned and trembling like a sentient broken china doll-

He’s surprise taken too seriously- yanks Naegi inside by his arm a bit too rough for his displaced condition- the boy yelps in pain and surprise, stumbles over untied laces-

“What the _hell_ happened to you?”

He’s gripping the boy’s shoulders too tightly- leaning down to eye level with him, concernedly examines gashes and scrapes along the side of Naegi’s face, lining his jaw. His tone appears calm- yet threatens of a whirl wind of aghast and rage brew just beneath the surface of that very very sensitive question.

“N-nothing- I just need to stay for a bit… I don’t want my mom to-“

 “Yes, yes, fine, stay!” Togami is a guttural scoff in bewilderment, anger, worry, too much to process all at once- “But who _dared_ to lay their hands on you?!”

He’s snarling now, face skewed dark broiling and lips pulled back to reveal perfect white rows sharp and clamped so hard it hurts- eyes narrowed, eyebrows furrowed deep into lines of mingling emotions, too many to count now- He cannot stand the idea of some worthless trash laying a finger on his boy, of even having the audacity to touch him once- let alone beat the absolute shit out of him. It’s a wonder the poor fragile thing even crawled his bloody heap self here to get help- he looks as though he’ll pass out any second- Togami grips him even tighter still to ground him.

“Just this guy… he… saw us.” He sniffles and shudders, leans forward into the other’s grip heavy to be supported- takes the load off of his trembling knees, “He called me a- a fag… Roughed me up a bit, that’s all.”

He’s about to snap again, _that’s all, that’s all_ , as if isn’t the vilest, disgusting, revolting thing Togami’s felt to ever happen in the history of the world- He recalls yes, homophobes, they crawl and creep around the crevices of any town, but never before has he imagined they ever had any power to hurt him- because he’s Togami Byakuya and he’ll do and like whatever and whoever he pleases- no plebian opinion phases him- but he’s a weakness now.

Naegi is a direct link to him, and Togami can’t believe he’s allowed this to happen- he should’ve been there- done something- Naegi is small and vulnerable, gullible and friendly, can’t defend himself against whatever bigot had decided to launch full-scale assault on one hundred pounds, five foot stature and tiny little smile- God! It makes him sick to his stomach, shaking to his core in the need to pummel something, just to imagine being such a lowlife. He must focus on the present, needs to attend to wounds and frame shaking in his arms.

“Come on.”

He leads Naegi along to the kitchen, stops at the island counter and lifts Naegi sudden and swift by his underarms to settle him atop the faux granite- He snatches a cloth from the cupboard and splashes it underneath stream of steaming hot water at the sink aside the boy’s thigh- comes more gently to tenderly pad at the concrete-scrape on his closest cheek. Naegi hisses and shudders, but doesn’t fight- one of his tiny hands- bruised and bleeding knuckles- comes to grip at the fabric of his unbuttoned button up, holds to him tight, white fabric stains red, but he can’t be bothered to care.

Togami is still fuming- face a shade darker than normal- eyes narrow and heavy and hollow and he’s the most intimidating Naegi’s ever seen him- lips pulled flat and slightly back in a permanent raise of hackles-

“Are you mad at me?”

He stops in momentary buffering puzzle, suddenly shakes his head negative and tries to wipe the rage clean from his mind- all he’s doing now is stressing the poor thing out- he tries to resume neutral state, for now, focuses on washing blood oozing from the rag to move to wipe the obvious sucker punch mark on his chin-

“God, no.” He holds the boy still with his other hand, stilling his opposite cheek- “Of course not.” Hums gentle concentration unbroken as he pads and wipes, “I just want to rip this motherfucker’s throat out, _that’s all_.”

He mocks Naegi’s former sentiment, his sneer returns full force too quickly and he has to pull away to pretend to be cleaning the towel again so he doesn’t accidentally hurt by washing too hard- he strings the towel as hard as he can- knuckles turn blister white as he squeezes it almost dry. He moves on to the medicine cabinet- Naegi coughs behind him and speaks up in hoarse voice.

“Don’t do anything crazy, please… He’s a big guy…”

He seems as though he’s going to start raving about this man’s (worthless scum’s, he thinks suits him better.) great ‘strength’ but Togami cannot be bothered to listen- anyone who abuses someone so much smaller than themselves is a fool and coward- he nearly crushes band-aid box as he pulls it out, feels around for painkillers and antiseptic pads-

“I don’t care who he is.”

Naegi is reluctant to shut up and allow Togami to use the alcohol- shies away from the pain he knows will come from the strong smelling substance on all his open wounds- scrabbles to take Togami’s free hand in tight comforting squeeze as he turns his cheek and closes his eyes so tight they scrunch up- he whimpers at first- whines and wriggles as the cold pain seeps through his face- and Togami remains stoic- strokes the back of the boy’s hand as he cleans diligently. He hadn’t planned to spend his Sunday playing nurse.

“Rest,” He pulls Naegi down from the counter- humors his earlier request to stay and lies him down on the nearest sofa, “I’ll take care of this.”

“No- Togami-“

“Just rest.”

He turns away from the struggling boy who he’d just swaddled on the couch- and the lingering open medicine cabinet behind him presents him a brilliant idea-

Ha, it would seem he has a phone call to make- Naegi’s ‘big guy’ deserves a _visit_.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aahh! The end draws near! It's always sad to end a fic, but I'll be sure to start another soon. I hope you guys enjoy where I take the ending and thank you all for following all the way through!

Togami is a mad scientist on a whim, and the medicine cupboard at his front is his maniacal laboratory for tonight. Lest one forget his devilishly deviant tendencies- He’s sly snake eyes darting from one bottle to the next, scaly blues traverse sultrily the lengths of pill sleeves and containers of liquids whose names even he cannot pronounce- Wow, they’d really gone all out when they’d stocked this place for his arrival, hadn’t they? Graciously, he’s allowed the pleasure of working in silence, Naegi had since succumbed to his injuries and exhausted himself on the couch, snoozing, catnapping, heavy sleeper, draped over the plush cushions- He no longer struggles and whines about Togami’s determination to secure revenge against the sick bastard who’d dared to lay hands on him.

And oh, the choices! He’s thrilled!

Relief floods so swiftly with the equipping of such a situation, thoroughly allows him the venting of some pent-up mania. Compares bottles of sloshy dark red liquid- He could aim to make something potentially lethal, of course, but isn’t sure if that’s the best choice for this scenario- No, something mild enough to make the ‘big man’ ill for a while would serve its purpose well enough for now. And it matters not how he has to administer it- his luck will accompany him in making this as easy as possible- Justice always finds a way. All he needs to do is cause a little misery, easy.

Thus he chooses at random, velvety maroon liquid sloshes against orange tinted plastic, heavy in his weighted hand- he tosses it onto the island countertop to remind himself to bring it along- but he’s got a call to make first. Certainly he’d have to locate the bastard before he could do anything about him, and who better to question than celestial homebody, know-it-all-supreme- Kirigiri Kyouko?

“Hello?”

She sounds uninterested, as per quota, it’s not like they ever have any particularly riveting conversations, but he’s sure the boredom won’t last long. He’s got a very interesting icebreaker to introduce, rolls silver tongue in relaying.

“Who beat the hell out of Naegi?”

That surely unbalances her acrobatic pirouettes of apathy, though she only sighs in response. He can almost envision her lean forward onto her desk, hand tucked under her chin to stew on it for a moment. He’s not sure whether she isn’t sure herself, or if she’s just hesitating to tell him- She knows- he knows she knows. Kirigiri Kyouko might as well be the mayor, she knows everything that happens here, heard it down the grapevine that her childhood best friend got himself pulped.

He’s eyes rolled rapid and scoops up the bottle and makes his way towards the front door, jangles his keys loudly in audition of the phone’s speaker in remind that he’s still on the line, waiting, waiting, he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Lock, click, and he’s out the door, towards his car, and she’s still said nothing. Silence brims his ear full.

“Well?”

“His name is Mondo Oowada. He’s probably at the bar.”

Ah, splendid. She already knows exactly what he wants, clever girl. Although at this point he’s already sure to have made note of her sharp wit in month’s past- She is obsidian blade whereas everyone else in this town is a godforsaken dull butter knife- as good as she is at humiliating him, despite the annoyance it causes, he cannot deny that she is quick- much quicker than she lets on.

“Don’t kill anyone. Naegi doesn’t condone murder, you know.”

He scoffs, plugs key in the ignition. There’s only one bar in town, of course, podunk rurality doesn’t give much room for bright light late night loitering and drunken hangouts- but all the better he supposes- less room for people like nasty filthy _Oowada_ in this town. He doesn’t plan on killing anyone, on spoiling his relationship with said boy or perhaps even getting involved with the authorities- he wouldn’t risk getting in a heap of shit for the life of someone who beats up five-foot gas station clerks. He’s definitely not worth it, far from worth it. Togami’s too much to lose at this point. Though, he could argue, a bribe would work hot and heavy in a police man’s hand- but still, no no, won’t kill because, yes, she’s right, Naegi isn’t one to support violence.

“He cries when he watches the Lion King, for god’s sake.”

He chuckles, shakes his head in silent, hearted agreement because Naegi is almost certainly the kind of person to get teary-eyed over godawful children’s movies and the faux deaths of anthropomorphic animals. Just another quirk, just another pro, just another reason he's so insufferably endearing. But he’s sure to make his intention clear, won’t jeopardize what he has.

“I won’t kill anyone.”

And he won’t.

He’ll just spike whatever the syrup in the cup holder to his right is into the man’s drink- and oh! How convenient it all is, he’s headed to a bar. It’d be easy as candy from an infant to confuse the likely drunken man into chugging the drugged glass of whatever-the-hell it is these country people drink to get their kicks.

Drunken men are the easiest to toy with- he’s learned that over the years of businessman manipulation- get him drunk and he’ll sign absolutely anything you ask.

It’s a few moments of idle conversation to Kirigiri to aid his escapade before he grunts a curt thanks into his phone, is truly a bit grateful for how easy she had made it to get ahold of Oowada’s whereabouts, she hadn’t complained or told him off- only reminded him of his current romantic commitment and his moral values. And he can’t argue with that. So he clicks to the cutting off of the speakers and tosses his phone into the bare passenger seat-

The bar is the only place in town with neon lights around the windows and the doors (save for the chinzy open sign at that horrible gas station) and music pours from its propped glass double doors. It’s as one could expect from such a small bar in such a small town- cramped and cluttered- and that’s only from observing from his car. He doesn’t want to get any closer- yet steels himself with wonders of sweet revenge and so parks parallel down the road a bit- arises and strides long and confident from car door to the entrance of the building- the bottle of red liquid in hand.

A few girls stand out front- though not dressed in any particular remind of the wenches hooking outside the bars in the big city- just normal girls, he guesses. Wouldn’t know- he’s never liked girls anyways. He pushes past them then, shoulders his way into the propped glass doors and shimmies past a cluster of people talking and laughing, heavy alcohol breaths and sweaty bodies too close for him to bear. To his left, past the body count, is a few chairs and tables, all chock full of clamoring customers- To his right is the bar, typical long U shape with the barkeep standing in the center- tending.

His small talk with Kirigiri on the way here, before he’d hung up, had led to proper description of the man, and it’s not hard to miss him. He sits dead at the apex of the U, talking loudly and drunkenly, enunciating each word with animated gestures of arms around his head like a toddler- annoying hairdo (his distinguishing feature, Kirigiri had said) falls near into his eyes. He’s disheveled, long days of bar hopping can ruin one’s appearance, and it’s not like Oowada needs any help getting uglier.

A busty blond leans on his jacketed bicep on one side, motorbike coattails hang off the back of the stool he’s haphazardly propped on. And Togami finds himself a deep sigh as he watches from afar, judges, can barely remember why he even decided this a good idea in the first place- but recalls Naegi’s tremors, clinging to him, leaving his white shirt stained with unnecessarily spilled blood, and he feels reinvigorated. He knows why he’s here, and his pretty penny perfect track record will see to it that he’s done quick and easy and successful, ah, as always.

He traipses closer over cherry wood flooring, creaking, and he’s not shy in pushing the black haired man to Oowada’s left down a seat to take seat next to him- It’s already nearly eight o’clock at night- the people here are not hard workers come to take a break after quitting time- They’re barflies, here every day they can be from open to close- he would shame them, but he knows addiction, can’t be a hypocrite.

They’re all properly wasted at this hour- too far gone to even spare his lanky rich frame a second glance in curiosity, as most do in these parts- He prods his way between them to sit. None even bother to raise an eyebrow when he slips syrup from inside his jacket to set it atop the washed wood counter-It’s all the same to them at this point- a bottle is a bottle.

Around them shine bright overhead lights- rustic barn lighting hangs above and the neat array of liquor behind the bartender is a rainbow of colors and interest, so many brand names and so many denominations, but not why he’s here. The bar is overstocked, people have pulled up chairs all the way around- it’s never as many people as there had been in the city, but more than he expected. The clamor is insidious.

But of course, ever the man with the prettiest pearliest of happenstance to suit his ever-present demands- (He’s a god.)- Oowada’s… drink-? He can’t tell what it is- is served in a tall, brass cup- ah, perfect. The bottle he’d picked hadn’t been too big- he could surely slip all of this in there if he so pleased- just has to wait for the right timing… and… There!

Oowada is all the abrupt in the world- leaning over himself to sloppily kiss at the lowcut daisy-duke clad broad to his right, her blond hair flounces as she squeals hideously in delight- barkeep already distracted by a small quarrel between two brunets at the far end of the bar, yelling and groping at the tarrying frames- and he pops the cap and lazily drains red froth into his opaque cup.

He doesn’t even look while he pours, feels it will draw suspicion if he’s so glaring at the object of his current violation. The barkeep hadn’t even noticed his arrival- too busy with the cluster of late night alcoholics demanding his attention- so he comically stares into space for a moment- feels the bottle still of its jerking pouring and- plink! He’s screwing the white cap back on tight and standing to his feet- Can really no longer take the heat, the bodies, the smell, the sound, forcing his way out of splaying drunken elbows and knees knocking in crowds.

And fresh air!

He emerges from the stench of the bar through those same double doors to the cold clean night air, nips his face, a bit hot from the obviously over capacity body count and maybe, he won’t admit, from it all being a bit nerve-wracking- He’s not a mafia agent, may be devilish but isn’t too used to villainy- coughs into his elbow to rid it and glances around to find no bystanders, chucks the bottle into a nearby trashcan-

He’s a drive home so gorgeously smug because god, he is a villain, that mad scientist implemented perfect plan to rule the world. Handsome, devilishly smart, a magician, a king, an agent, and all anyone could ever need.

Oowada will… Well, he’s not quite sure, really, doesn’t care enough about what it’ll do to him to be curious about its effects. It’ll make him sick, that’s all that he cares about- even if he doesn’t drink it all, even if he won’t necessarily know who had done it to him, or that it is punishment for his treatment of Naegi, Togami can’t find the room to pay it any mind. If he touches Naegi again he’ll just have to take things up a notch. Sure, Oowada likely lifts, burly steroid muscles attest, but does he have a permit to conceal carry? Togami Byakuya is an esteemed multimillion-dollar businessman- he surely can’t be seen unprotected. In this town, he’d found it slow enough to leave his close-to-the-hip bodyguard at home- but his suitcase still houses the nine gauge, nonetheless. He’d had to carry it with him in the dangerous back alleys of the city, he’d of been robbed and killed long ago without it- So he could threaten with it… if he had to.

He’ll be sure not to let Naegi be caught alone next time.

His drive back ‘home’ passes in a flurry- he’s smirking all the way, prideful proud of his achievements and hoighty-toighty with his head held high and nose pointed. All the way his arrogance streams, unchanged despite all the effects, into the front door, jing jing jangle go the keys as he unlocks the front door and-

He’s a strangled surprise gasp and grunt, immediately met with blunt force to his chest, knocks the wind out of his smoker’s lung- ah, Naegi’s up- got arms tossed around his neck and snuggling himself tightly to Togami’s chest, pulling him close in desperate grasping movements, got him inside with the door slammed close with the kick of a foot.

“Are you okay? I woke up and you were gone!”

His hazels flick frantically around Togami’s frame, holds the taller in place with tight grip to his upper arms as he rounds him like a hawk, searching for pain or injury, likely, and he yanks the taller man down with that baby vice grip on his arms to buzz and pace around him in search of something amiss, but of course finds nothing-

“Fine. Just paid your friend a visit- I’ll just say we’re missing a bottle of what was likely cough syrup now.”

Naegi stops in his shark circling tracks, little red sneakers squeal on wood beneath- he almost laughs and almost gasps, makes a little choking noise in the back of his throat and quick to cover his mouth with a small hand, flutters it like he’s fanning himself a young southern belle, a melting dessert in hot summer’s heat.

“You didn’t.”

He’s met southern belle sweet with matching game fiery, egotistical gentleman, stands all his attentive length and chin raised like a proud lord returned from an eventful pheasant hunt, relays his prize in lifted smirk cheeks and a lower of his frame to eyelevel his partner.

“Oh yes, I did.”

And Naegi leaps back into his arms, coos with effort hot as he hugs as tight as small arms can muster- Togami seizes him in response, wraps strong lengthy return around the boy’s back to hold him up from the floor, carries him and tells suave his story of drugging the drunk man as he coddles the boy back into the living room- and when he’s finished, rather quick, not one to draw things out, they’re quiet then.

He sits atop the couch bouncy cushions with a heavy thud and hands intertwine and bodies mingle close, pulls Naegi to sit upon his lap between crossed legs. He doesn’t protest, wraps an arm around the larger man’s shoulders to rest forehead upon that juncture between his neck and the point of his shoulder, sighs unto the warm skin with his lingering laughs of disbelief at it all. It’s a bit much for him to take it- all happened so quick and yet delightful- Togami is his strawberry sundae supreme, warm first sun of summer, vibrant box of new crayons, all the things he’s come to love.

Togami idly strokes bruised cheek with a thumb, sighs as he rests, takes in sight of Naegi’s busted face, leant to his chest, now that it’s no longer covered in blood. It’s not so bad now, his left eye is swollen still, and his lip bears a nasty cut- but the bruises no longer look as angry without the blood to accent them- it should all heal up in a few days, he thinks- pulls Naegi up to kiss that busted lip gently- afraid to cause hurt.

He kisses, kisses, kisses, each blemish and scrape and cut is cured with the plush of pink lips brushing over it- and Naegi drinks it in with a dorky grin, relaxes his full weight onto Togami and runs small fingers up down through tresses of blond- it’s slow and easy and he’s never felt anything like it- giving attention, affection, makes his heart swell- who would’ve thought? Certainly not he.

“Thank you,” Naegi cups his face finally, rests their foreheads close and shuts his eyes, melts into embrace, “for doing that for me.”

And Togami answers with soft scoffing chuckle, playful roll of eyes because he’s been through it all, and now he’s at peace with it- it’s unsaid, unrequited, but he says it anyways-

“For you-? Anything.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ((Also btw I love Oowada and this does not reflect how I feel about him as a character or any headcanons for him- this is just an au and I needed a burly guy to play the part lol))


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hhh this is the end, guys! Thank you all for your support! I had so much fun with this- I adore using prose style, so thank you for encouraging me.

Togami Byakuya is driving. He’s driving his big black muscle car with the kitten engine and the jet pitch interior, all fine leather and gorgeous hum to his foot on the pedal and-

Something’s missing.

He feels alight- Hairs stand at his nape as cold rush settles over him. No, something is not right. The car is far too hushed, it’s quieter than he’s become used to, windows are rolled to their hilt closed airtight and yet he’s not smoking, not even thinking about it. He’s chilled to the bone in a sweat of anxiety, quiet breath out as his eyes nervously flick to the empty passenger seat. Ah, he’s alone… But that isn’t right… He’s adopted a sidekick, hasn’t he? A little brunet cashier with curly twirly brownie bite locks with the stardust freckles and the tiny hands- the petit voice and it’s plush powder lips to match-

“Byakuya-“

He’s cerulean narrowed at himself in the sidecar mirror and- no, he surely hadn’t called his own name- A frantic eyes toss to the back seat reveals still no one, he is alone, and the dread is killing him- killing him from the inside out- where is his Naegi? His name, yes, that’s it! He murmurs it slow, yet sees himself make no movement in the mirror and the world outside of his car window is black. Yes, black, not tinted by smoky car windows- just nonexistent- the void-

“Hey, Togami!”

And it startles him to a jump and-!

“Oh, Jesus Christ.”

He groans- awake now- runs heavy a hand down his unframed face to force himself a grip on reality. How strange a dream that had been, but he’s quick to dissect its meaning, quite an obvious little moral. It’s just nothingness and void of light without his Naegi, yes, yes, very clever, god of dreams. He’s a roll of eyes, oh, what a way to properly showcase the newfound hip attachment he’s invited into his life. Dreams work in strange ways, enigmatic.

Said hip attachment is true to his title, curled at Togami’s side on the couch still- his face remains bruised and scraped, but ever the dearest, and he’s got a cool hand flat to the other’s neck as if he’d been shaking him by the shoulders- hm, a dream shaken awake- if his dreamworld houses no room for Naegi, he much prefers reality. Brunet shakes and tickles across Togami's face as the boy stretches up toward the ceiling in good morning rise- rolls his shoulders and yawns and cricks his neck as he wriggles from their tight coil of limbs intertwined in warm sleep-

His legs are pushed off the couch as Naegi frees himself from between them- he’d slept cuddled to the other’s chest, completely cocooned but now restless in his waiting for the other to arise- no work today, and he’s grateful. Relaxes lazily on crossed arms behind his blond mess as the smaller shimmies to his feet and stands tiptoe to again stretch- He groans little voice, turns and smiles with puppy-titled head.

“Coffee?”

He ‘hmms’ in agreement, nods once, and the boy is trotting off to the kitchen behind them, he’d shed his stained jacket, now only clad in tshirt and scrunched up jeans, and Togami had shown the hoodie to the wash- “I believe it’s white vinegar for blood stains…” and he’d treated it thusly so- it’s Naegi’s favorite article of clothing, he couldn’t just leave it dry like that. The boy speaks up from the kitchen- something clatters as he fumbles around for the coffee and tries to figure the machine's inner mechanisms-

“So- I freaked out last night when I woke up,” Togami hears water pouring from where he lazes, but he’s listening, “I called my mom for some reason- force of habit, I guess?”

Now he’s a bit piqued, curious to hear what the banter had come to, raises his eyebrows and himself as he sits up on his elbows to peer over the back of the couch at Naegi as he places the pot underneath steady stream of black liquid flowing.

“Nothing happened, but it just reminded me to tell you that she likes you a lot.” He’s a sappy little grin as he leans back on the counter to wait on the coffee, “She’s happy for us.”

He’s not done, it would seem, in a chatty mood, and Togami can’t complain. They don’t get much time to just talk all idle and calm- domestic- He enjoys it, props his chin on a fist like a teenage girl on her cellphone, cocks head to indicate he’s listening.

“And Komaru- She’s trying to get into college young,” He sighs, “She could do it… It’s just, y’know, expensive.”

And Togami scoffs, rolls his eyes because he’s rich, flops back down onto the couch to again sink behind the cushions and out of Naegi’s sight- He knows this isn’t what Naegi is looking for, nor what he probably wants. The boy is way too selfless to ever ask for anything so large, but again, as always, as all things are, it’s a drop in the ocean to him- and anything to make Naegi’s life a little sweeter,

“Consider her tuition paid for, then. And yours as well, if you plan on going.”

Naegi is the expected squeak, stands hand to mouth and shaking his head fervently and gasps out, “oh no, no, no!” but Togami won’t hear it, holds hand up in the politest ‘shut up’ gesture he can manage. Naegi’s done more for him than he’d ever want to admit- aided him, calmed him, understood him, stood by him, ah, all those things done out of a simple sweetness- no drive for money or power because he’s found love with a simple boy who seeks only companionship, love, his mind pure, unlike old suitors and bachelorettes from the city.

He’d come here lost on the mindset of such things- he’d been desperately missing his highlife in penthouse apartment, plush imported sheets and sterling silver dishware- but he’d also been surrounded by unfeeling people there, moneymen and their cougars. The dollar signs in his eyes haven’t left, really, money is ever a goal, but he’s secured it- always flattered by the lavish salary here and, of course, his city job can be kept as well- yes, quite the sumptuous rake in of income.

But now he’s found something, someone, much more captivating than work- didn’t ever think, or want, to find love out here, or find love at all- but still had- and he’s never one to regret.

Life, love, the world as he knows it- he’s grown to like the rustic wood ceilings above him as his eyes trace every etching, grown even more to appreciate and cherish the boy at the coffeemaker, swinging lithe hips to the tune of a song only he can hear, pouring black into mugs and humming to himself, dopey grin paints his face. Damn, looking like that, Togami’s not sure how long he’ll be able to stay planted on the couch- might have to get up and seize cute tiny dancer by his face to give him a scolding kiss. There’s a buzz at his phone as he ponders it all-

_10:45 am-  
It’s been long over a ‘few months’ now. You can come back from Hillbilly Hell._

He’s a grimace at reading the contact, dread seeps like brake fluid antifreeze through his veins because he’s grown to despise the man so. His father is calling him ‘home’, back to the city, back to it all, back to the rush and the solicitors and the girls wrapped in tight leather coats with cheetah fur lining- he doesn’t want to go, can’t, won’t drag Naegi into such hell, and certainly can’t abandon all he has for himself here- and actually… though he's a frown at a feeling so peculiar, he’s still Byakuya Togami: Businessman, that part of him hasn’t left, likely won’t, he’s happy to still be himself, if only free of the emotional baggage, he has Naegi to lean on now- And he would really rather stay. Even if begrudgingly, deep in his heart.

_10:50 am-_

_I’ll remain here._

And that’s all he offers, all the old man is worth. He’ll pop back in, have to face the fury eventually, of course, but right now is right now and right now he’s got little Naegi Makoto sitting at his hip and pushing a warm cup of ‘black, that’s how you like it, right?’ coffee into his hands. And it tastes a little less like tar when Naegi makes it, for some reason, but he’s not really paying much attention to the taste, watches instead the other boy blowing steam from his mug over the rim of his own.

“I got something for you.”

Naegi is a little pep in sudden remembrance, swimming hazels glitter with mischief and enthuse, a dig through back jeans lanky pocket to reveal a little wrists flick of yellow carton, small in his hand. And Togami’s not sure what it is at first, narrows glasses-less blind man's eyes and shifts in closer- they lay on the coffee table but he’s not bothered to get them. The little prize of saccharine egg yolk coloration is pushed into his free hand, other balances coffee-

And it’s a packet of gum, that Juicy Fruit gum, to be exact.

And he’s smiling bittersweet though there’s no reason for the bitter because all is bright and merry and he’s the happiest he’s been in a long while, the freest he’s ever been his whole life. He wraps fingers around it in acceptance, he doesn’t have to elaborate on the gift’s significance, they both remember well enough their first meeting- seems like yesterday and so long ago all at once. He leans across the gap between them to close with warm lips meeting chaste in silent thank you- he smells and tastes of fresh warm brew. 

“Let’s take a drive,”

And he’s rising to his feet, forgetting their mugs still half full on the coffee table, left behind like issues of old- all he secures is his glasses and his keys- and of course, the little cardboard menace, Juicy Fruit follows him everywhere- Naegi doesn’t protest a bit, seems enthusiastic as per his character, and bounces out the front door in pursuit towards big black car sitting in wait. He's lemon-lime margarita excitement and giggles and Togami just cannot contain his matching thick bourbon lilt tilt up of lips. His earlier dream had recalled his driving- and he’s going to drive- but in a world of noise and color, not silence and black- a world he, despite still being his same old self, has come to appreciate- with Naegi Makoto in the passenger seat.

He’s fast to peel out to the main road, opens up to steady speed on the flat and straight and wide, asphalt on route whatever-the-hell- pastures as far as the eye can see on both sides and he doesn’t hate it as much as he had a few months ago- It’s bright blue sky, cloudless and endless, and stretching to meet green horizon in front of them. Naegi’s got the radio on, and he’s singing along to something pop, and his unbrushed brunet flicks around rounded ears, cheeks rosy with ecstasy. Togami smiles, chews yellow wad of gum between his teeth as he peruses, cruises, it’s free, it’s fun, it’s them. All he never knew he needed to complete his perfection. He's still himself, and Naegi's the same- but better together, yes, by far.

And he rolls the windows down as they drive.

**Author's Note:**

> oof ive been excited to start this one so please be nice :o


End file.
